Fresh row brews over pub football

By Andrew Verity
Presenter, BBC Radio Five Live Wake Up To Money

Premiership football can cost a pub more than £10,000 a year

The Premier League has warned pub landlords that if they chose to screen premiership matches without subscribing to Sky they would be breaking the law - in spite of a recent court ruling.

A growing number of publicans have signed on to screen premiership matches via satellite from broadcasters based in other countries.

Publicans pay between £500 and £1,400 a month for the right to show Sky's coverage of premiership football, depending on the size and rateable value of their pub.

If they sign up to receive coverage by foreign broadcasters, marketed by companies such as pubfootball.co.uk, they can show most of the premiership matches at a fraction of the cost.

One company, Soccer-Vision, claims to offer more than 85% of all televised FA games shown for a fee of £595 plus the cost of a viewing card - which it says amounts to less than £6 a week.

Dan Johnson, spokesman for the Premier League, told Five Live's Wake Up to Money: "We're looking to take action against the suppliers, because quite often the publicans unwittingly buy these satellite systems and install them and basically it is illegal."

Judge's ruling

But lawyers for 25 publicans who have used foreign broadcasts to show premiership football say they are more confident than ever that what they are doing is legal.

Last month Brian Gannon, the owner of the Fisherman's Inn near Rochdale, won his appeal in the crown court against a private prosecution brought by the Federation against Copyright Theft.

We have cases in Portsmouth, in London, in Surrey, Wigan, Liverpool, Manchester Paul Dixon, solicitor Listen to Wake Up To Money

It had claimed he was illegally using a Greece-based broadcast to show live premiership TV.

The judge ruled otherwise.

Paul Dixon, from the solicitors Molesworth Bright Clegg, said: "Many of these cases are coming to trial in the next few months. We have cases in Portsmouth, in London, in Surrey, Wigan, Liverpool, Manchester.

"We're expecting the cases to be successful. It's significant that the Premier League have not appealed the Gannon case up to the divisional court in London."

The Premier League says the Gannon case is a not a landmark case. Companies acting for Sky or the Premier League are pursuing more than 60 cases against pub landlords.

Mike Cobain, the owner of pubfootball.co.uk, says publicans should not be intimidated by legal threats.

He told Wake Up to Money: "The European Union have a directive called 'Broadcasting without frontiers', the principles of which are to promote the free movement of broadcasts from all EU member states."

This story was broadcast on BBC Radio Five Live's Wake up to Money on Thursday 27 April at 5.30am (4.30 GMT) - which can now be downloaded to your computer or MP3 player.