חומר רקע
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9 April 2026
Hon. MK Distal Atbaryan
Chair of the Special Committee - Communications Law
Dear Sir/Madam,
PREMIER LEAGUE COMMENTS ON SPORT CHAPTER OF MEDIA BILL
1.
Introduction
1.1
This letter relates to the bill for the Communication Law (broadcasts), (the Media Bill), in
respect of which The Football Association Premier League Limited (Premier League) has had
sight of an unofficial English translation of the sports Chapter.
1.2
The Premier League is a private limited company registered in England whose shareowners
are its member football clubs which participate in the Premier League competition in each
football season. The Premier League has responsibility for organising and administering the
Premier League competition (which is the apex of the football league pyramid in England and
Wales) including the sale of the broadcast rights to the Premier League competition.
1.3
As the Premier League controls the worldwide broadcast rights to matches played as part of
the Premier League competition, the Premier League licenses broadcast rights for viewing in,
inter alia, Israel. The Premier League’s current licensee of live audio-visual rights designated
for exploitation in Israel is Charlton Limited.
1.4
The Premier League understands that the proposed Media Bill would potentially have a
significant and harmful effect on the ability of rights owners to license broadcast rights in Israel
and has therefore decided to make the submissions set out in this letter.
1.5
Previous letter that we sent to the Israeli government, with respect to an earlier drafts of the
bill, appear to have been entirely ignored by the Ministry of Communication. We trust that the
Premier League’s submissions set out herein will be considered when any further decisions are
taken in respect of the Media Bill. For the sake of efficiency, we focus on sections 77-84. We do
have comments on other sections, and we reserve the right to raise such comments along the
process of legislation, if need be.
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Scope
2.1
The Premier League’s understanding is that sections 77-84 of the Bill are not intended to create
specific obligations on the Premier League itself (in its role as a rights owner licensing content
for exploitation in Israel), rather these sections relate to (a) intermediaries who acquire certain
sports content in Israel (such as local sports channels) and who enter into distribution
arrangements with platform operators and (b) platform operators (referenced in the Media
Bill as “content providers”) in Israel.
2.2
The language of sections 77-84 is extremely damaging, as explained in more detail below. It
should be noted that the Premier League has the right and discretion to grant an exclusive
licence in Israel, and moreover the entire global business model of sport broadcasting relies on
exclusive licensing to function (and generate the revenues required for professional sport to
operate and thrive). Simply put, without the ability to grant an exclusive licence in Israel, rights
owners may opt not to grant any licences at all in Israel.
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2.3
The comments below are predicated on the basis that sections 77-84 do not apply directly to
the rights-owning licensors. Obviously, if the proposed law evolves into a regime that applies
directly to the Premier League as a rights owner and interferes more directly with its licensing
process, this will require a separate discussion. Having said that, the proposed intervention
in the market will have negative effect on the rights of the Premier League, because it
seems to imply indirect intervention in the licence which is granted by the Premier League
to local channels and/or distributors.
2.4
Our understanding is that Sections 77 and 82 of the Bill effectively creates a legal regime in
which sport events are losing their proprietary nature, and will be subject to a “must sell”
obligation, combined with “no discrimination” of terms and fees which will be exclusively
calculated on a per subscriber basis.
2.5
This extreme regime will apply to Premier League events if they are deemed to be of
commercial importance by the Council. It is impossible to predict all the serious consequences
such broad application might have for sports events which are so designated, given the
extreme nature of intervention which is proposed in section 79. Sections 77 - 82 are very
different in nature from the “listed event” systems seen in other jurisdictions (i.e. aimed at a
securing free-to-air coverage of events of very significant national importance).
2.6
The Premier League is surprised and disappointed to see that instead of narrowing down the
scope of intervention in the market compared to the previous proposal, the current proposal
now includes more extreme intervention in sport rights. We are not aware of any country in
the world that has applied such an extreme regime.
2.7
We understand that, separately, sections 83/84 would maintain the existing system of listed
sporting events, based on “special importance to the public” in Israel, similar to systems that
exist in the UK and other countries. It is noteworthy in this regard that the Premier League is
not a listed event under equivalent provisions in the United Kingdom itself, its home market.
2.8
While it appears to the Premier League that a foreign domestic league (like the Premier
League) should not qualify for listing under the test in section 83, the drafting is sufficiently
broad as to give the regulatory council considerable discretion. Applying the section 83/84
regime to a foreign domestic league like the Premier League would be an extreme intervention
in the market in Israel and would be unacceptable and unjustified, as discussed in section 6
below.
2.9
The Premier League considers that listed event regimes (of any nature) represent a significant
market intervention and therefore listing of events which are not local should be limited to
international events involving national representative teams which are of demonstrable
national importance, where the television audience extends far beyond regular sports fans to
include the entire public at large.
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General Comments
3.1
The provisions of proposed sections 79 through 82 of the draft Bill appear to represent a drastic
and far-reaching market intervention. In the Premier League’s view, such extreme intervention
has no room in a general law, but should rather be made on a case by case basis, after a
detailed regulatory investigation, which should include a full and robust market definition,
detailed competition law analysis (e.g. the application of the “SSNIP” test in order to
determine substitutability) and the establishment of problematic dominance or specific
misconduct in the delineated market.
3.2
Imposing such extreme (and we consider unprecedented) measures, on all sport events which
are designated as being “commercially important”, cannot be justified. Instead of careful and
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precise intervention to secure a competitive and healthy market, such intervention would
instead serve very significantly to undermine the free market in sport rights.
3.3
In particular, forcing an acquirer of sports content to distribute that content on third party
platforms undermines the principle of freedom of contract and property rights, both by
overriding what otherwise might be agreed between rights owner and the acquirer, and by
forcing a contractual relationship between the acquirer and third party platforms. In simple
words, the proposal to have a “must sell” rule, combined with a non-discrimination rule
plus intervention in the scope and details of the commercial deal, is an extreme
intervention in the freedom of contract, which amounts in effect to “taking” (or even
confiscation) of property rights.
3.4
Moreover, forcing an acquirer of sports content protected by intellectual property rights
(including copyright) to distribute to third party platforms, without the consent of the rights
holder (or outside the scope of such consent), also undermines rights guaranteed to rights
owners under international intellectual property treaties.
3.5
If the Committee decides to proceed with the Media Bill, we would urge the committee to
undertake a full and thorough review of the constitutionality of such an extreme intervention
and its compatibility with Israel’s international obligations, including the Rome Convention,
Berne Convention, and TRIPS Agreement.
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Problems with Section 79
4.1
The Premier League understands that Section 79 of the Media Bill requires an acquirer of
certain sports content rights to offer to sell such rights (or the channel/service on which such
rights are carried) at a non-discriminatory price to all Israeli platforms.
4.2
Such a remedy is likely to give rise to unintended consequences, which might lead to opposite
results than those intended. Simply put, if an entity is deprived of its property rights in
produced content, it will have less incentive to invest in high quality content, on the one hand,
and will be forced to ask for higher payments from the platforms to mitigate the economic
risks that the remedy involves, on the other hand. Instead of helping the subscribers to pay less
and receive more, the outcome may well be exactly the opposite: pay more and receive less.
4.3
The content that the Premier League licenses is protected by copyright. We are aware of
supreme court decisions in Israel that have accepted and repeated this notion. A legal regime
that interferes with this property right, even if it appears to be only applicable to licensees, is
a “compulsory licence”, as opposed to a property right to authorise or prohibit the use of a
copyright work. A compulsory licence, which is practically applied to all commercially
valuable sport broadcasts, without any need to show specific justification, seems to be in
contradiction to the so called “three step test” of the TRIPS agreement section 13.
4.4
Sports rights are a complicated product, with complicated pricing methods. The market prices
and terms reflect the supply and demand at the time of the deal. There may be legitimate
changes over time, and legitimate differences between platforms. A non-discrimination rule
might cause the local licensee not to grant any discounts to anyone and by that, certain local
platforms might decide not to purchase this content due to the “equal” price that might not fit
their package. The public will certainly not benefit from this rule because at least some of the
subscribers will not have access to content they wanted, the platform will be deprived of the
ability to receive a discount, the local licensee will lose the income from this platform, and will
have to take it into account when making pricing decisions so prices will have to be higher to
mitigate this risk. The Premier League does not believe that this proposed rule contributes to
the aggregate welfare in Israel. In fact it seems that it may well force higher pricing by licensees
and fewer viewers.
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4.5
If this proposal was intended to indirectly interfere with the licence fee between the Premier
League and future local licensees, this is unacceptable. The Premier League believes that the
government of Israel should respect the intellectual property right of foreign sport
organisations, and their freedom of contract, and should refrain from unjustified interference
with such rights.
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Problems with Sections 81 and 82
5.1
Section 81 proposes an extremely unusual concept of splitting the sport content from the
packages offered by platforms and imposing a duty to ofer it separately to viewers. The
proposal seems to ignore the practical aspects of such a proposal (which we believe is
extremely complicated to perform) and effect it is likely to have on the prices that viewers will
be asked to pay.
5.2
Section 82 seems to ignore the fact that rights owners may, for valid and legitimate reasons,
choose to license rights for certain delivery systems only. Not only could this have potential
commercial ramifications, it also permits no sensitivity in respect of the on-going fight against
piracy and unauthorised distribution outside the licensed territory. Rights owners have a
genuine need to ensure that, when they license rights, they are sufficiently protected against
piracy and extra-territorial distribution (e.g. by the use of effective technological protection
measures), and have control over all of the distributors of their rights.
5.3
The Bill undermines that by removing the ability for rights owners to decide upon, or approve,
the distributors of their content. An important factor taken into account by the Premier League
when selecting its content partners is the ability for that partner to deploy effective content
security so as to ensure that content licensed in, for example, Israel stays within Israel and is
not available more widely (thereby undermining the territorial licensing model used by most
major sports). This is a concern that will be shared by owners of other major rights properties
popular in Israel.
5.4
The proposal set out in the Bill may therefore have the unintended consequence of making the
Israeli market a more risky one for rights owners to license their rights in.
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Problems with Sections 83 and 84
6.1
As noted above, we believe that “listed events” should only ever be those with local special
importance. We understand that the rules in section 83 will require at least two conditions to
be met for an event to be listed for the purposes of section 84, for example that the event is of
“special cultural importance” AND that there is a high “degree of interest in the general public”
in the event.
6.2
We do not consider that a foreign domestic league like the Premier League would meet the
test in section 83. The wording should clarify that the list cannot be extended to foreign sport
events without a significant connection to Israel.
6.3
Listed event regimes requiring or prioritising broadcasting of certain events on free-to-air
channels are an extreme market intervention. These regimes interfere in the normal market
for sale and purchase of sports rights and restrict competition by limiting the pool of bidders
for rights to a small group of entities who are less able to monetise the rights, and are less able
to pay full value for them. Restricting broadcasting revenues has a clear and obvious impact
on the funding of professional sports, and the listing of events should therefore be exceptional
and should not have the effect of adversely impacting the day-to-day revenues of domestic
professional sports.
6.4
For that reason, it is very rare to see even domestic professional league competitions listed in
“listed events” regimes. In the UK for example, in its home market, the Premier League is not a
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listed event. While the Premier League is popular, individual matches are not a nationally
significant event, but rather a regular and typical occurrence as part of the operation of a
professional sport. By extension, it is unthinkable that another country’s professional football
league could ever be listed in the UK.
6.5
The Premier League therefore urges the ministry to limit the authority in section 83 in a way
that will not allow such an extreme outcome as to permit the possibility of foreign domestic
sporting competitions such as the Premier League from being potentially listed.
6.6
Section 84 creates significant problems for events that are listed, beyond what is seen in the
text. We understand that the only channels that will be practically allowed to broadcast such
listed events, are free-to-air channels, i.e. not channels which only exist on platforms such as
“basic tier” cable channels. These free-to-air channels are subject to various other parts of the
Bill, including a system of free retransmission over the internet of such channels through a
government retransmitting service, and another system of free retransmission by content
providers, in certain circumstances.
6.7
In both cases, the rights of the content owner are not properly protected: forced
retransmission of channels undermines copyright in the content and the need to obtain a
licence for the retransmission, in violation of international norms. Further, enforced “free”
availability could have very significant consequences (as free-to-air channels are much easier
to view on an unauthorised basis outside Israel), leading potentially to reluctance from owners
of listed events to license rights in Israel at all.
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Summary
7.1
The Premier League has strong concerns that sections 77 - 84 of the Bill propose remedies
which are likely to prove ineffective and counter-productive, and ultimately damaging to
Israeli consumers and the Israeli media economy. As far as the Premier League is aware, the
proposals lack the necessary market and conduct investigations and analysis and are
therefore unevidenced and unwarranted.
7.2
As explained above, by effectively forcing distribution of content via online platforms, and
more generally removing the ability of rights holders (and intermediaries) to determine where
their content is distributed, the proposals would make licensing content in Israel more risky to
rights owners.
7.3
If implemented, these sections of the Bill will likely prove to be damaging for Israeli consumers,
harmful for Israeli companies and would be inconsistent with Israel’s international reputation
as a thriving technological hub and free market economy. We believe that the proposal is in
contradiction to international obligations regarding IP rights, and it seems to be in
contradiction to Israel’s own constitutional protection of property, and of freedom of contract.
7.4
The Premier League would strongly recommend that the sports-related proposals set out in
the Media Bill are reconsidered and ultimately entirely withdrawn, or at least limited
significantly, in line with international standards.
7.5
We also note that rights owners, rights holders and other stakeholders have acted in reliance
on the current regulatory regime and entered into commercial arrangements accordingly;
therefore any change in the regulatory regime should allow for transitional arrangements that
both respect existing arrangements and allow parties properly to prepare for the changes by
providing for a period of time before any changes come into effect in relation to future
arrangements.
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Thank you for your time and attention.
Yours faithfully,
Josh Smith
Senior Director of Media Rights and Content Services
The Football Association Premier League Limited