Tomasz Frankowski, MEP : « The short-term value of sport broadcasting makes most of the traditional mechanisms against piracy pointless »

Posté par Isabelle Szczepanski le 21 mai 2021

MEP Tomasz Frankowski (Pol, EPP) has had a very fruitful week, as two projects he has been working on since his arrival at the European Parliament have been adopted in the past few days : the report on the challenges of sports events organizers, asking for solutions to sports piracy, on the one hand, and the Creative Europe Regulation, considerably increasing EU’s support in favor of culture, on the other hand. He tells ElectronLibre why these two measures are close to his heart, and why the European Commission « should come up with a legislative proposal as soon as possible, without any delay » regarding piracy in sports.

 
« As a former football player, I can testify that sport makes a significant contribution to social inclusion, education and training, job creation, employability and public health in the Union. »

 
ElectronLibre – You have been at the forefront of the fight in favor of the Parliament’s report on sports, that was adopted this Tuesday. Why was this report so important for you?

As a former football player, I can testify that sport makes a significant contribution to social inclusion, education and training, job creation, employability and public health in the Union. However, this sector is also facing a quantitative raise in pirated live sport broadcasts, which impacts on the market value of such events. In 2019, 7.6 million subscriptions were made to illegal broadcasting platforms in the EU. These subscriptions generated around €522 million in illicit revenues and €113.5 million in avoided VAT .

According to Hadopi, in 2019 in France, the loss of revenue was estimated at 800 million euros for sport and broadcasters. It is also a loss of tax revenue for the state of 332 million euros and the loss of 2650 jobs in these sectors. By comparison, this €1 billion loss is equivalent to half of the funds allocated to culture in the economic…

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