Football website goes to law against Premier League
The FA Premier League’s licensing scheme for the written press has thrown up a range of anomalies, and has prompted Yanks Abroad - which covers US footballers around the world - to start legal 
proceedings after being denied a licence this season. Sean O’Conor, Yanks Abroad’s England desk chief, takes up the story
Yanks Abroad began in 2004 when six Americans lamented how little coverage there was of their best footballers, who were based outside the United States, and decided to do something about it.
By January 2007, we had turned into one of the world’s top 20 football websites (according to Google) and had surpassed Sky Sports’ website in visitor numbers, while our staff have been interviewed by Channel 5, CNN, ESPN and The Guardian and been quoted frequently by Sports Illustrated, The New York Times and many others. Our traffic continues to grow, with 16 of our top 20 days for hits occurring this past month.
YA covers several European domestic leagues and the American national teams, and was fully accredited for the World Cup in Germany. But when it came to getting one of the Premier League’s new licences to cover football in England, the cornerstone of our reporting, where 17 Americans (such as Blackburn’s Brad Friedel) ply their trade professionally, we have been denied the opportunity to do our jobs.
The renewal forms for 2006-07 were sent to us by the Premier League in an envelope without postage. When we returned the forms, we received a letter refusing renewal, giving nothing beyond “there is only so much space in the press box” as explanation.
We made several attempts to contact DataCo, who handle the licensing paperwork, and the Premier League, but only a recent letter mentioning the possibility of legal action provoked Derek Johnston of the Premier League into calling a meeting.
Johnston began by offering us only a Football League licence, but this was hardly the point: there are 12 Americans in the Premiership. The keys to our success have been our specialisation and establishing personal connections between ourselves, players and readers.
After an hour’s discussion with Johnston, we were promised a two-week review of our case.
What was striking was that there appears to be nothing in black and white regarding the criteria for awarding Premier League licences, beyond the need for public liability insurance, which we had purchased as required despite one lawyer I spoke to informing me it was actually unnecessary as ground insurance covers any eventuality caused by a journalist.
What the Premiership was defending seemed to be overly discretionary and arbitrary rules, which made us to feel we had a legitimate right to challenge them.
We argued that the clubs are happy to let us in because we report responsibly on areas of football not covered elsewhere and so we provide a valuable tool for promoting the Premier League in one of its target growth areas, the United States. When pressed to say why exactly we weren’t welcome, Johnston said nothing beyond “you’re not Yahoo” and “you’re not The Times” (Yahoo, in any case, uses wires and does not do its own reporting as we do).
Johnston seemed to be implying only big and established outlets were welcome, while smaler and newer ones were not. He asked us if we felt we were equivalent to a local or national newspaper.
We explained to him that as a specialised online service we were different to both, but given the choice we are national, because we are read by people across the United States and globally via the internet (approx 60-65 per cent of our readership lives in America).
All our writers belong to AIPS, yet we were told that the recent concession to overseas members of AIPS would not apply in our case: our reporters could come to England to cover the occasional game, but not make it a regular thing – again the official line seemed vague, ad hoc and unsatisfactory.
We are considering our next move but feel important principles of reporting freedom and transparency of rules are at stake here. We are based in a country (America) which has freedom of the press enshrined in its constitution and an access to sporting events and participants for media representatives of which English football journalists can only dream.
The Premiership is of such global significance that we feel that the FA Premier League’s practices on reporting access need updating to take account of proliferating worldwide media. It would at least help if they showed us written criteria that confirms that only large and established English outlets are really welcome.
Visit the Yanks Abroad website here
Join the NUJ’s online survey on football accreditations by clicking here
Try to find the licensing criteria on the FA Premier League’s website here
February 2nd, 2007 at 12:52 pm
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February 5th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
Far be it from me to turn Devil’s Advocate and ride into battle on Mr Johnston’s behalf, but in fairness to the man I’m neither big nor a newspaper - in fact I’m the theoretical extreme of both - but he awarded with my a FootballData Co licence this summer with the minimum of fuss.
He had no real need to - I’m a wholly new venture; I’m a professional sports reporter servicing his own football website from Press boxes up and down the land, albeit always following Norwich City. My office is my lap-top and my kitchen table…
And I added an extra body to that Press box - the newspaper for whom I used to work for 14 years, still sends their reporter… So, fair play, to Mr Johnston. He ‘got’ what I was about, what I was doing and now - just six months into the life of www.rickwaghorn.co.uk - 66,000 visitors a month of a Norwich City persuasion are reading 234,000 page impressions a month thanks to me, my website and my FootballData Co licence number.
I’m a fully accredited, professional football writer who sits in a Press box and never has to worry about a print press deadline. I go from my lap-top to their mobile phone in one tick of a box.
Now the big BUT to all this is the fact that I’m a Football League operative and on current form, Norwich might not be troubling the gilded ranks of the Premiership for a while yet - that may well be where the crunch comes.
But, as I say, fair play to Mr Johnston. He saw what I was up to; what technology allows me to do in 2007 and went with it… And, I suspect, given the comment about ‘being local…’ he does appreciate the value of a local and loyal audience that used to follow us old, provincial evening newspaper football writers around before the internet struck and sent our newspapers into, potentially, terminal decline.
Best of luck to Yanks Abroad; but I wouldn’t immediately paint Mr Johnston as wholly closed to the new media revolution that’s underway; he opened the door to the Football League for me…
Rick
February 12th, 2007 at 10:30 am
We cover 13 London football clubs. We preview each club’s home matches. I have not previously applied for a licence as most clubs know those of our writers who need access to the press box and grant it on receipt of a written request. However, I have recently had journalists denied access on the basis that they are not licensed, so I need to look into the feasibility of applying.
My comment, however, refers to the fundamental iniquity of this scheme, and the utter arrogance of the football authorities in believing they have the right to control who gains access to their matches in order to do their job. As a weekly preview magazine, we assist clubs – particularly those in the lower divisions who never sell out – by encouraging our readers to go to games. Is this service not beneficial to the clubs?
Does any other sport have such a system? Of course not. Do theatres, cinema chains, dance venues, art galleries etc try to license journalists? There would be uproar were they to try – and, I suspect, a more concerted and highly-publicised campaign of opposition. Why has football been allowed to get away with this?
February 13th, 2008 at 9:12 am
I take my hat off to Derek Johnston and this is after I have had problems getting access to a game. If accreditation is not strictlty governed we are going to end up with more and more people applying to go and watch games for nothing or simply by going to satisfy their hobby. I am absolutely fed up of sitting next to photographers who basically keep their fingers on the button and photograph everything in the hope that they get one good picture. As for the NUJ, i used to be a member, you should keep your own house in order and only admit proffessional journalists to your Union and not every Tom Dick or Harry that thinks they are a journalists, ie teachers, retired headteachers and former sports people with no journalistic training.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:51 am
As someone starting out as a sports photographer i feel i should defend Derek Johnston.
At the start of my first season when i had been struggling to find the information about qualifying for a football league licence he was very helpful, after one email he replied with in 60 minutes with his direct number and in the following phone call he provided me with all the information i required.
Huw, I fully agree with you on this. very annoying to be sat trying to focus on the game when the “fanzine” photographer is just shooting at random, many people dont appreciate the skill in anticipating the moment to get the right image, and for me i took the bulk of my first season before i was able to regularly do this