Football DataCo

Controversy

The company has been racked by controversy in the UK media, after a 2004 European Court of Justice ruling that the Premier League and Football League cannot use the European Database Directive to demand payment from media and pools companies for the publication of fixture lists. Football DataCo refute the ruling, arguing that a legal precedent was set in the UK back in 1959, when the Football League won a landmark copyright victory against Littlewoods, claiming income from the pools company for their use of the fixtures list.

Staunch opponents of Football DataCo argue that the ruling is long out of date, and needs to be brought more inline with the advances in information collection and delivery that we are seeing with the World Wide Web.

Small, independently owned football fan sites have been badly hit by Football DataCo, who even charge non-profit making enterprises the standard fee for use of single club fixture data unless adopted by a club as a "Nominated Fanzine" in which case the charge is £1.00 plus VAT. This has meant that many fanzines have been threatened with removal of the fixtures by Football DataCo.

The company has also challenged many not-for-profit websites over their use of football club badges on their websites.

The licensing business outside of the UK is handled by Fixtures Marketing Ltd, which has filed lawsuits against Finnish Oy Veikkaus AB, Swedish AB Svenska Spel and Greek Organismos Prognostikon Agonon Pododfairou AE for using fixture lists without a licence.

Court case results

On Monday 12 November 2012, the long running claim brought by the English and Scottish professional football leagues ("the Leagues"), their licensing agent, Football DataCo ("FDC"), and its sub-contractor PA Sport ("the Claimants") was brought to an end. The Claimants told the Court of Appeal that following the European Court of Justice's decision "CJEU Judgment"). They accepted they did not have rights in the Fixture Lists enabling them to charge licence fees for use of their fixture lists – some four years after the case had begun.