The league are claiming that the practice breaches intellectual property laws and adversely affects any organisation that sells rights on a territorial basis. Currently, pubs and clubs can buy satellite systems for Scandinavian, Italian, Greek and Albanian television for much less than the cost of Sky - and show live football at 3pm on Saturdays. The test case next week is against QC Leisure, a UK supplier of foreign television smartcards, and Karen Murphy, a publican in Portsmouth. The Premier League had been confident of winning a High Court case three years ago after positive noises from the judge, Sir Nicholas Pumfrey. Pumfrey died suddenly aged 56 before he had made his judgement however and the case has now been passed by the High Court to Europe. QC Leisure are claiming that as Europe is a single market, they should have the freedom to sell their systems anywhere on the continent.
