New ruling for radio stations that want to broadcast soccer. The Supreme Court has established this Tuesday that radio stations must pay to broadcast matches, partially estimating an appeal from La Liga. These media will be in charge and obliged to pay the clubs an amount of up to 100 euros per stadium and match and for the entire football season. This is mainly to pay the expenses generated by the clubs for making these spaces available to the broadcasters so that they can broadcast sporting events live from the field.
The Contentious-Administrative Chamber has explained that compensation is not established for allowing radio stations to enter football stadiums, since the General Law of Audiovisual Communication declares that access is free, but for the costs involved in making available and maintaining the radio booths in the sports venue.
It was in 2012 when the Telecommunications Market Commission set this economic compensation at 85 euros per stadium and game. Then, La Liga appealed to the National Court asking that it be raised to 142 euros per radio operator, stadium and match during the entire football season.
In 2015, the National Court set the amount at 100 euros for each game broadcast. But La Liga appealed again to the Supreme Court claiming that the payment should be made for the entire football season. Otherwise, he argued, it would imply that the clubs would assume costs that would always be generated to guarantee the right regardless of whether the radio operators attend the matches or not.
Now, the Supreme Court partially agrees with him by maintaining the compensation at 100 euros but declares that they must be paid “for the entire season by each radio audiovisual communication service provider that wishes to exercise the right of access to a stadium or venue to broadcast the corresponding sporting event live.”
There are “fixed expenses”
The Third Chamber indicates that the teams must make conditioned booths available to the radios whose installation and maintenance imply “fixed expenses for the clubs regardless of whether the stations decide to attend a certain match or not, so that for the consideration to have an equitable nature it must be established by season”.
The ruling comes after the Constitutional Court resolved last February the question of unconstitutionality raised by the Supreme Court against article 19.4 of the aforementioned law, on free access to radio stations and the aforementioned economic compensation, understanding that it could contravene the rights of property and freedom of enterprise, something that the guarantee court ruled out. 19.4.
