TV footy crackdown as rival offers cheap deal

by John Harrington

Licensees are being warned of another crackdown on those showing Premiership football illegally this season.

It comes as another equipment supplier that offers pubs cut-price access to Premiership matches maintains that it is doing nothing wrong.

Coventry-based Dream Box is offering licensees access to all Premiership games for an entire season, including those on PremPlus, for £1,595 plus VAT. The only other payment is £350, plus VAT, every six months for a new viewing card.

Dream Box spokesman Steve King said almost 100 licensees across the country have signed up to his service, which uses transmissions beamed in from the Middle East.

King said he was confident he was not breaking any laws as Sky does not have the right to transmissions from outside the UK.

This claim is flatly rejected by Sky and the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), which stress it is illegal for licensees to receive Premiership matches from anyone other than Sky.

FACT operations director Jim Angell said Sky is the only supplier with permission from the Football Association to show Premiership football in the UK.

'I get licensees ringing up and I tell them they would commit an offence if they show Prem-iership matches from anyone other than Sky, said Angell.

King argued that Dream Box had not broken laws because Sky had never successfully prosecuted other companies that supply Premiership football.

But Angell said there had been a number of successful prosecutions against suppliers and licensees for showing illegal football in the past.

He warned of a crackdown for the coming season that will initially be focused on pubs which use domestic Sky packages to show football in the bar area.

'We are going to start off with the domestic licences and we will continue on with people showing illegal football from foreign satellites, said Angell.