The Association for the Study of Sport and the European Union, of which I am a member, is providing a series of analyses of legal cases concerning sport, particularly football. The first of these concerns the so-called Murphy case on TV decoders which started with a Portsmouth landlady. It is provided by Association for the Study of Sport and the European Union, of which I am a member, is providing a series of analyses of legal cases concerning sport, particularly football. The first of these concerns the so-called Murphy case on TV decoders which started with a Portsmouth landlady. It is provided by Mark James, the head of Salford Law School, but does not necessarily represent the views of the association.
Mark James says that the case raises as many questions it answers. However, it is clear that while consumers may benefit in theory, they will not do so in practice. They would have to acquire hardware for each provider they used which then would be redundant if the contract to show football was lost.
James comments that ‘What is perhaps most surprising about this case is that the Premier League was prepared to go to such great lengths and such great expense to seek clarification on two relatively straightforward issues of EU law … This phenomenon is replicated on almost every occasion that a national governing body or international sports federation finds itself a court: a single-minded determination to prove that their position is right, or that sport is exempted from the application of the specific provisions under discussion, and a refusal to engage in any meaningful manner with the law.’
Why is this? I think it reflects the ‘world of football’ phenomenon which Sue Bridgewater refers to in her book on football managers. Football is in many respects a closed community which thinks it can regulate itself (which it palpably can’t) without the intervention of the law or governance processes. I have certainly encountered from a Premiership chairman a lack of realisation that football clubs are subject to EU competition laws and indignation that this was the case.