THE Premier League is considering legal action against cyber pirates who are jeopardising its £1 billion television rights deals by broadcasting live football games over the internet.

Internet pirates are undermining the lucrative deals that the league has signed with Sky, the BBC and overseas rights holders by streaming live matches on to the net from foreign countries.

Under a UK “blackout”, designed to protect match attendances, Premier League football matches are not shown live in Britain on Saturday afternoons.

Sky, which has a £1.024 billion deal with the league, shows matches and highlights later in the day, while the BBC also shows highlights after the matches have been played. Games are shown live in 195 foreign countries as part of a £320 million deal with foreign broadcasters.

However, pirates are circumventing the blackout by streaming the matches live over the internet. A person based in a foreign country, where the match is shown live, streams the content, and the link is uploaded to a server, usually located in the US. Sites in the UK then allow fans in Britain to link to that server and watch the match live.

Fans, who find out about the sites on football message boards and from chat forums, connect to the site and watch the live stream on their computers, paying a minimal fee of only a few pounds.

The Premier League, which found out about the problem several months ago, has hired a technology company to locate and shut down the sites. The company, NetResult, has shut 50 sites so far, including one called soccerstreams. The site now has a notice saying that it is “negotiating . . . as to what is acceptable on this site”.

The league now also wants to sue one of the sites as a test case. To bolster its lawsuit, which industry insiders expect to be launched in the next few months, the league is understood to be considering seeking support from other sports that are affected.

The league hopes to recover money lost by proving that the cyber pirates have breached its copyright.

Christopher Stokes, chief executive of NetResult, said: “[The problem] is in danger of getting out of control. Once a site is shut down, some will try to set up again under a slightly different domain name.”

Watching television on a computer has become more popular with the growth of broadband, which allows better-quality pictures to be viewed. Last Saturday one sport site was watched by 15,000 people, internet experts say. On an average Saturday, at least 50,000 people watch games live on the internet.

Though the numbers are small compared with the millions who view the matches on television, the league believes that it must take action before the problem gets out of control.

It is not the first time that the league has cracked down on potential breaches of copyright. Last year it took action against satellite hackers who intercepted the signal from foreign countries to show matches in British pubs.

The Premier League said: “Clearly anything that infringes on our rights deals is a concern and we are duty-bound to protect our rights holders.

“The rights deals are how we sustain our competitiveness.”

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