I could sense the interviewer on BBC 5 live was getting exasperated with me.
Here I was, the man who supposedly knew everything about the legal row between the Premier League and Portsmouth publican Karen Murphy, yet even though the European Court of Justice had finally handed down its verdict I still wasn't able to say who had won.
The newspapers weren't having the same problems. They trumpeted Karen's success in primary colours.
"Murphy 2 Sky 0" ran a headline in the Daily Mail while the Mirror was as black and white as a Newcastle United strip in declaring her victory.
Yet on Tuesday, the day of the judgment, and even now, many hours later, I am still unable to bring myself to match Karen's much photographed glass raising skills and toast her success.
To understand why, we first have to consider what she was fighting for.
As the landlady of the Red, White and Blue she was screening matches for her customers sourced through the Greek satellite channel Nova, which she estimated cost around one tenth of the feed from the Premier League's officially sanctioned UK channel Sky.
Karen argued that as a European Union citizen, she should be free to access coverage from any other EU nation, in accordance with the Treaty of Rome, which guarantees the free movement of goods and services.
The Premier League claimed football was a special case, given that the value of their product varies so much from one country to another, and is especially valuable in England, where the current three-year TV deal is worth £1.8billion.
Not unnaturally, they wanted to protect the income flowing from television to sustain a brand now widely recognised as one of the best in the world.
It was billed as a David Vs Goliath battle, and although Karen had been convicted in an English court in 2007, she was vindicated this week by the ECJ to the extent that her right to watch Premier League matches via a Greek satellite decoder was upheld.
As the ruling states, "national legislation which prohibits the import, sale or use of foreign decoder cards is contrary to the freedom to provide services and can not be justified."
So one-nil to Karen, certainly, but the Court promptly allowed the Premier League to claim an equaliser by insisting that certain parts of a broadcast, such as the pre-match anthem and highlights from previous games are subject to their copyright control.
In other words, unless they give a publican their permission to screen a match available through a foreign decoder, customers won't be allowed to watch an entire TV programme showing a game without frequent interruption.
I put this to one publican of my acquaintance who said that this wouldn't matter, because fans are only interested in what happens from kick off onwards.
But in a briefing I had with a Premier League official, I was told that even action replays are covered by copyright, meaning that a publican showing a match using a foreign decoder could only comply with the law by switching off the TV every time a vital piece of action was shown again in slow motion.
It throws up the absurd image of a landlord standing in a crowded bar with the remote control in his hand, and denying his customers a second look at a vital offside or penalty decision for fear of being sued for breach of copyright.
Small wonder that the Premier League is insisting that the judgment protects the status quo, with pubs allowed to show only broadcasts from Sky and their other live TV rights partner ESPN.
It means that landlords who attempt to follow Karen Murphy's lead over the coming weeks by showing top flight English matches using a foreign decoder will certainly be taking the risk of an unwelcome knock on the door.
The only real point of clarity to emerge is that armchair (as opposed to pub-based) supporters will in future be able to access Premier League football from other European TV channels.
So far, though, there's precious little evidence that this will be noticeably cheaper than buying a Sky or ESPN package in the UK.
It's apparently only in pub subscriptions where there's a significant price differential between British-based sports channels and their counterparts in the EU.
As so often in these kind of disputes, the row will rumble on, with all 18 points at dispute now being referred back to the UK High Court by the ECJ.
The only real winners, one suspects, will be the lawyers.
Adrian Goldberg presents 5 live Investigates every Sunday night from 9pm.
|10:14 UK time, Thursday, 27 October 2011
