Government Make SKY Deal Illegal!

By Cian Duffy
July 17 2002

All us non-Sky Sports subscribers can yell 'Thank You, Open Frontiers Televison Act, 1999' today, as the BSKYB deal has been rendered illegal...

In the past few moments, it has been announced that the Irish Government has made its list of sporting events protected under the Open Frontiers Television Act of the European Union. These include Irish soccer internationals, home and away; and the soccer World Cup. This act is also retrospectively put back to 1999, making any satellite or pay-TV deal since then illegal.

In short, the Open Frontiers Television Act allows member states of the EU to specify which sporting events it will allow only to be shown on free-to-air TV, be it analogue terrestrial or DTT. The Irish Government had not enacted this act at its inception, but the EU allows the act to be applied retrospectively to 1999. As the SKY deal restricts access to paying customers of satellite or cable, it breaks the Act, and cannot be allowed.

The reaction of SKY who have already paid €7,500,000 for the home rights, and the FAI who stood to get up to €17,000,000 for the away rights, are currently unknown. It is assumed neither organisation will be pleased. It will be possible for them to launch a a legal challenge, but the European Commission made clear the act must be respected.

This means that the television rights MUST be given to either RTÉ, TG4 (an RTÉ subsidiary) or TV3, for whatever the highest fee is. TV3 have the highest funds source, as they have their owners Granada and CanWest to get money from, but it still seems that RTÉ will regain the rights.