Three cheers for fans, doomsday nearing for EPL

They are able to enjoy live telecasts of many English Premier League games though there is only one company owning the broadcast licence.
Currently, no games are allowed to be shown live on TV in the UK at 3pm (9pm Bangkok time) on a Saturday to encourage the fans to attend the matches rather than sit in the pub or at home.
BSkyB and ESPN have the exclusive broadcast rights for the Premier League in the UK. With 10 million subscribers, Sky TV is the dominant pay-TV provider in Britain. However, its power has been thrown in doubt following a test case involving a pub lady, Karen Murphy, in Portsmouth.
Murphy recently won a landmark court case against the Premier League, which could bring more televised football to the public. Fed up with paying a huge subscription fee to Sky, she instead bought games through a Greek satellite broadcaster for a much cheaper price.
The Premier League, which sold the rights to broadcast games in this country exclusively to Sky and ESPN for ¤1.8 billion, took legal action claiming Murphy was in breach of copyright. She was fined ¤8,000 by a British court.
But later a European court backed Murphy and said the Premier League’s stance was “contrary to EU law” on the freedom of trade. It means Sky and ESPN cannot hold pubs and fans to ransom with monthly subscription charges which are often as high as ¤12,000 a year.
Landlords could now be able to show all 380 Premier League games a season by buying decoder cards and subscriptions from TV companies based in other EU states for less than ¤2,000 a year. The ruling will now go to the UK High Court for final ratification.
This European court ruling could change dramatically the way of life of British fans.
It could be a victory for the fans and pubs. Currently, they are having to pay a high price for match tickets and some of them cannot even afford to get the tickets. While some leading clubs have increased their ticket prices, the fans now would have more choice and can save money. They can choose to watch at pubs, which would get it cheaper thanks to the European court. Viewing a match at home still costs a lot. One needs to buy a TV box and decoding card from overseas.
However, the new way of life would probably destroy the atmosphere at Premier League’s stadiums, arguably the most superb in the world, with its full throttle of support from the fans. It would be pity if we see many empty seats in the stadiums.
Still, the ruling will see the Football Association Premier League Limited (FAPL) – the private company that represents the broadcasting interests of the 20 English Premier League clubs – and rights owner Sky as losers. They could be forced to reduce the subscription fee for public or the public could turn themselves to other better options.
The ruling could also drastically reduce the revenues received by Premier League clubs from TV broadcasters because they would no longer be able to sell the matches on an ‘exclusive’ basis.
The clubs may be also forced to reduce their ticket price, fearing that attendances at matches could be reduced. However, this will probably do the game more harm than good because it will affect their revenues at a time when the economic climate is making it harder for clubs to sell tickets for games anyway, especially medium and small clubs.
Football industry experts fear that reducing clubs’ revenues could prove damaging to the strength of the Premier League as opposed to other European leagues.
No matter what the consequences, the pub landlady had already become a whistle-blower for football fans.