The Commission has decided that UEFA’s new rules on the broadcasting of football matches as amended in July 2000 fall outside the scope of European competition rules. The rules allow national football associations to block the broadcasting on television of football during 2½ hours either on Saturday or Sunday to protect stadium attendance and amateur participation in the sport and are a good example of how to reconcile competition rules and the special characteristics of sport.
The issue of the broadcasting rules of European football governing body UEFA goes back several years and met with the strong opposition of commercial broadcasting companies, which complained they were being unduly restricted in their freedom to show the matches they had paid for.
The new Broadcasting Regulations represent a significant improvement compared to the Broadcasting Regulations that were originally presented to the Commission in terms of scope and procedure, which has permitted the Commission to declare the rules outside of the scope of the competition rules.
The price of broadcasting rights to sports events has increased dramatically in the last years and TV rights for football tend to be the most expensive of all. While very much welcoming TV revenues, football clubs also want to protect stadium attendance to maintain the atmosphere there. The Commission’s examination of the UEFA broadcasting rules takes into account those two conflicting interests.
Starting with the 2000/2001 season, UEFA’s new Broadcasting Regulations allow national football associations to prevent the broadcasting of football within their territory for 2½ hours either on Saturday or Sunday at hours that correspond to their main domestic fixture schedule. A football match is played in two parts of 45 minutes each with a 15 minutes in between, so the 2½ hour ban will be enough to protect stadium attendance and even to allow such fans eager to watch the match also on TV to get back from the stadium.
The rules provide national football associations with the opportunity to schedule domestic football fixtures at times when they are not liable to be disturbed by the simultaneous broadcasting of football to the detriment of stadium attendance and amateur participation in the sport.
In practice, only 10 out of 21 national football associations within the EEA chose to have blocked hours this season. No television channel in England, for example, will show football between 14:45 to 17:15 on Saturday whereas the Belgian football association chose to put its blocked hours at 19:30 to 22:00 also Saturday. This means that at times broadcasters may be deprived of the possibility to broadcast football events live. But the Commission reached the conclusion, taking into account the features of the UEFA Broadcasting Regulations and analysing the market situation, that this effect cannot be qualified as constituting an appreciable restriction of competition within the meaning of Article 81(1) of the EC Treaty and Article 53(1) of the EEA Agreement.
The Commission also concluded that the Broadcasting Rules would not affect cross-border broadcasts appreciably since they only apply to so-called ‘intentional’ broadcasts, i.e. broadcasts specifically produced for a given territory in terms of language or content, and since most broadcasters only intend to broadcast into the territory of a single national football association.
In reaching its decision, the Commission took into consideration the fact that national fixtures are increasingly spread throughout the week both for the 1st and 2nd division in particular in the leagues from the big football nations that have a foreign market outside their domestic market. In most of those leagues, matches are played over several days of the week and at varying hours. The combination of the actually blocked hours and the various fixtures will therefore rarely result in situations where broadcasters would be prevented from broadcasting football of a particular origin and viewers from seeing it.
The Commission also examined the emerging market for Internet streaming of football but took the view that the Broadcasting Regulations would not at present appreciably restrict the technological and economic developments in the sector. However, the Commission reserves the right to intervene in the future if developments were brought to its attention which would indicate that the Broadcasting Regulations would have become a barrier to the development of new Internet services.
‘The present decision reflects the Commission’s respect of the specific characteristics of sport and of its cultural and social function in Europe in trying to play the role of an impartial referee between the different interests of broadcasters and football clubs,’ European Competition Commissioner Mario Monti said. Mr Monti added that the Commission would only intervene in the actions of sports associations to the extent that these would appreciably affect economic markets such as the broadcasting.
The Commission’s decision on the UEFA Broadcasting Rules does not prejudice the assessment of the joint selling of broadcasting rights by national football associations, which is still being examined under Article 81(1) of the EC Treaty and Article 53(1) of the EEA Agreement.
Background
UEFA is an association of 51 national football associations in Europe. As a rule, there is a single association in each country except for the United Kingdom, where for historical reasons England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland each have their own association.
UEFA first introduced broadcasting rules in 1988. The rules were amended on several occasions as a result of complaints from a number of broadcasters. The complainants argued that the Broadcasting Regulations restricted competition. The Commission shared this concern and issued a statement of objections on 16 July 1998 finding that the regulations infringed Article 81(1) of the EC Treaty and Article 53(1) of the EEA Agreement and that they were not eligible for an exemption unless modified.
The UEFA Broadcasting Regulations originally presented to the Commission were very complicated and extensive in scope. They operated with a time window system covering the whole week provided for different authorisation requirements. The authorisation system is abandoned under the new Broadcasting Regulations. Football associations can therefore no longer veto transmissions into their territory arbitrarily. UEFA has also abandoned the exemption for UEFA tournaments, which were contained in the old Broadcasting Regulations. Thus there is no longer a situation with market sharing between UEFA and the National Associations.
UEFA adopted the new Broadcasting Regulations in July 2000 on which broadcasters were consulted. They came into force on 1 August 2000.
For more details contact:
European Commission competition spokesperson
Michael Tscherny
Tel: 00 322 299 4009