UEFA threaten 101 Great Goals: A Response

As Euro 2012 kicked off on Friday, we received a threatening email from European football’s governing body UEFA.

The contents are copied at the bottom of this post for all to see. Here is the 101 Great Goals response:

Not for the first time, 101 Great Goals is being attacked by a large and wealthy football organisation, with in this case, UEFA, proving how out of touch they are with football fans and modern technology.

As stated on other parts of this website, no one at 101 Great Goals, nor anyone connected with this site, has ever uploaded football videos on the internet. 101 Great Goals does not host or broadcast any such video on our servers. All we do is locate already existing videos and embed them on our site.

All videos uploaded onto this site are traceable through to their source, with all videos labelled to their host site (e.g. YouTube, rutube.com or DailyMotion). This creates a situation of transparency, whereby everybody can see which video site is hosting the content.

If a video comes down on YouTube (for example) it comes down on 101 Great Goals. And the corollary is also true. Just as 101 Great Goals has no control over which videos come out online, we also have no control over taking these videos down.

In the case of Euro 2012, it is possible to find videos of all the opening matches on a variety of video sites with UEFA clearly struggling to “police” the internet.

Two observations:

Rather than playing a game of whack-a-mole which UEFA can never win, why hasn’t the European governing body put the online video highlights issue to bed by releasing the content for general use to everyone?

If UEFA had one globally accessible site that had all videos available for linking to with appropriate embed codes – even if those videos were laced with advertising – they would be the destination clips for all football fans to enjoy the highlights of Euro 2012.

Moreover, UEFA’s money-centric outlook on the Beautiful Game appears as transparent as ever.

While talking the talk about grassroots football and spreading the impact of the biggest sport on the planet to previously untouched nations in Eastern Europe, the widespread belief is that UEFA have handed the tournament to two nations many believe are unfit to host Euro 2012.

Even in the opening days there have been a host of racism and violence issues, yet rather than taking the lead in combating such evil social divides the football governing body appears more interested in chasing 101 Great Goals over videos that are hosted on other websites.

We urge you to Like, Retweet and Share this article to make UEFA aware that their bullying tactics will simply not work.

The email we received from UEFA is here:

Dear Sirs,

UEFA CaseID-138839

We write on behalf of UEFA who (i) owns and/or controls all rights for UEFA Euro 2012, including broadcast rights and (ii) is the owner of the rights to the UEFA Euro 2012 copyrighted material.

We have noticed that your website http://www.101greatgoals.com/ is offering/displaying UEFA Euro 2012 audio visual content.

On behalf of UEFA as owner of the rights to the above copyrighted material at issue in this notice, we hereby state that we have a good faith belief that use/display of the above material in the manner complained of is not authorised by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

We wish to make you aware that your present use/display is an infringement of UEFA’s rights.

Please immediately cease all such infringements on any and all of your web sites and confirm to us via email that you have done so.

Nothing in this letter is intended or shall be construed to constitute an express or implied waiver of any of UEFA’s rights or remedies, all of which are expressly reserved.

We thank you for your cooperation.

I, Tim Cooper, as a representative of NetResult hereby digitally sign this e-mail message under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America with the additional statement under penalty of perjury that the information in the notice is accurate.

Yours faithfully,

Tim Cooper

NetResult Solutions Limited

PO BOX 68506

London

SW15 9DT

United Kingdom