Crackdown on illegal TV football broadcasts

by Tony Halstead

Evidence has emerged of the dramatic scale of the crackdown on illegal football broadcasts at pubs this season.

Media Protection Services (MPS), which investigates and prosecutes venues that show matches illegally in the 'closed period' on Saturday afternoons, is to visit 200 pubs every month this season to root out rogue screenings.

As well as targeting closed period broadcasts, MPS officers will investigate pubs that show games beamed in from abroad using satellite decoders.

Meanwhile, the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) estimates that around 30 licensees will have been summoned to magistrates by the end of the month for showing Premiership Football in their pubs using a domestic Sky package.

FACT operations director Jim Angell said three licensees had so far been summonsed to magistrates for the offence this season. He expected that number to increase to around 30 by the end of October as FACT begins to accumulate more evidence of illegal screenings.

Angell said FACT receives about 12 reports of rogue broadcasts at pubs each week - many of them from other licensees.

'Genuine licensees have nothing to fear. But the ones who think they can get around paying for the proper package can expect the wrath of the law,' said Angell.

He added: 'A lot of legitimate licensees are fed up, and are phoning us because they are losing money. If there's someone in their high street who has the correct package and there's a pub three doors away that is showing football illegally, it's going to create bad feeling.'

Companies that offer pubs cheap access to Premiership games by transmitting signals in from abroad, via decoders, are also being targeted this football season.

Earlier this month trading standards and police raided the offices of Hartlepool-based Network Services (Cleveland), which is alleged to be offering pubs access to illegal broadcasts beamed in from outside the country.

A date has yet to be set for the company's case to be heard at magistrates.

'There are similar companies about and they will be subject to the same sort of treatment,' said Premier League spokesman Dan Johnson.

Johnson warned: 'We are stepping up our campaign and looking to do 200 visits (to pubs) a month throughout the country. People who fall foul will be prosecuted.'