(FT) -- That most exclusive of clubs, the chairmen of the Premier League's 20 teams, sat down to dinner on Thursday night after a board meeting at the Churchill Hotel in central London, contemplating a very unsavoury problem.
It was not sexism in football, but the financial foundation of the league and their clubs' TV rights income. Nevertheless, that foundation is under threat because of two women -- pub landlady Karen Murphy and Juliane Kokott, advocate-general at the European Court of Justice.
Ms Kokott on Thursday said Ms Murphy was justified in arguing she should be allowed to show live Premier League matches in her Southsea pub using a Greek decoder card rather than the encrypted service of BSkyB, which owns the UK rights. BSkyB charges pubs about £10,000 ($16,137) a year. But Nova had bought the Greek rights to EPL matches at a much lower rate so Ms Murphy was charged a 10th of what she would have had to pay the UK broadcaster.
The advocate-general's opinions are generally endorsed by the ECJ. If that happens, the implications cannot be underestimated -- for the league, which receives £1.8bn ($2.9bn) for the three-year UK rights, the clubs, whose income from TV generates nearly half their income, and their players, whose wages are inflated because of the level of TV income.
Ms Kokott's opinion also applies to home viewers of live matches. She said the sale of rights country by country was against the European Union's internal market. CNN
