UK man fined £22,000 for illegal football broadcasts

A pub supervisor in Liverpool has been fined more than £22,000 ($33,000) for illegally showing football matches broadcast by sports channels BT Sport and Sky Sports.

Anthony Tynan, a premise supervisor at the Mariner, in Liverpool, was found guilty of seven offences of dishonest reception of a television transmission with the intent to avoid the applicable charge.

He was ordered to pay £2,000 per offence, as well as a £2,409 victim surcharge, £5,689 in prosecution costs and a court charge of £520 bringing the total fine to £22,618.

Tynan was fined after a successful prosecution organised by the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT).

Stephen Gerrard, prosecuting manager at FACT, said: “This result is a timely reminder to the small number of licensees who persist in using illegal systems to show Sky and BT Sport broadcasts.”