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 Welcome to the News desk.
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| French bets ruling could be windfall for sport |
13/6/2008 |
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Matt Scott
A French high court ruling has paved the way for sports governing
bodies to charge betting companies for permission to offer markets on their
tournaments.
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| Fédération Française de Tennis |
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The decision, made last
week, could help sport tap a commercial stream as significant as the
multi-million pound broadcast-rights market. As a result of the ruling all
internet bookmakers offering bets in France on sports events will be forced to
pay a premium to the event's organiser. The ruling, following a case brought by
the Fédération Française de Tennis against the internet
firms Unibet and Expekt, follows a similar resolution from the 47-member-state
Council of Europe in January. That declared an intention to "better protect the
intellectual property of fixture lists for sports events".
The two
Internet sites were banned by a French court from taking online bets in France
on matches at the Roland-Garros tennis championship in Paris. Unibet and
Expekt, both based in Malta, were also ordered to pay 800,000 euros (1.24
million dollars) in damages and interest to the French tennis federation, which
owns the rights to the much-watched sporting classic.
In two distinct
rulings, the court ruled that both sites "violated the operating monopoly
conferred on the French tennis federation, the organisers of the tournament."
It ordered Expekt to pay 300,000 euros in damages and interest, and Unibet
500,000 euros.
The verdict will be applicable in the UK, as British
bookmakers such as Betfair, Ladbrokes and William Hill will have to pay for
events such as the Tour de France.
The issue will be on the agenda at the summer
meeting of the Sports Rights Owners Coalition, which will pressure government
to introduce a similar system in the UK.
"There will be a very
interesting question for the International Olympic Committee when it comes to
Europe," said a high-level source. "If you are betting on London 2012 through
an online operator in France you will have to pay the IOC. If Paris had won the
right to the 2012 Games everybody would have been charged a premium but not in
London. The IOC might like to address that with the government."
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