FIFA and UEFA challenge the UK's list of 'qualified broadcasters' for listed events

Having submitted a similar appeal against Belgium's listed events in 2007, FIFA and UEFA, the governing bodies of world and European football respectively, submitted a legal challenge against the UK's "listed events" (being events of national importance, the broadcasting of which must be reserved for territorial broadcasting channels and not exclusively shown on pay-television) system in early February of this year.

Unlike certain other European countries (including Germany) which only designate matches in which the national team is participating at a major tournament (together with, in Germany's case, the final stages of major tournaments) as listed events, Belgium and the UK protect major sports tournaments in their entirety. The result of this is that every match of tournaments such as the 2008 UEFA European Championships is reserved for the "qualified" broadcasters, which within the UK means the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and only recently channel five. The qualified broadcasters have the right to bid for the rights to all listed events.

FIFA and UEFA have also questioned the validity of the list of qualified broadcasters in the UK given that Channel 4 rarely bids for the rights to the listed events. The governing bodies argue that the list is restrictive and the result is to give the BBC and ITV a monopoly over the listed events. In practice the two main UK territorial broadcasters come to arrangements to share the rights to broadcast tournaments which form part of the listed events, rather than try and outbid each other for the total packages on offer. This means that the rights for major tournaments such as the FIFA World Cup and the UEFA European Championships are shared and rightsholders such as FIFA and UEFA do not benefit commercially as much as if there was competitive bidding between individual broadcasters.

The European Commission is expected to respond to FIFA and UEFA's complaints shortly.