The big news to rock the world of football and the internet this morning is the Premier League’s request the 101greatgoals blog remove links to Premiership goal highlights, which is licensed material from the Premier League.

The site in question, 101greatgoals.blogspot.com, has been a great resource for fans worldwide during the past few months by showing a collection of the best goals and highlights for those people who missed them. The creator of the site, though, is linking to videos that are already available via YouTube. So the question is: why isn’t the Premier League threatening YouTube?

For soccer fans in the United States, there are no “on demand” web sites or TV networks available to view the highlights of these goals. And is there anyone in the US who owns the internet rights to show the highlights (i.e. a competitor to 101greatgoals)? The answer is no.

The organization doing the work of contacting sites on the Premier League’s behalf is NetResult, who specialize in meeting “the most recent challenge facing sports rights owners — i.e. change in the way sport would generate commercial funds from its rights.”

While I totally understand that the Premier League wants to protect its rights and to offer them for sale to organizations wishing to own the internet rights, it sounds like the Premier League is going after the wrong party. As long as YouTube exists and continues to show the Premier League highlights, there will always be sites that will link to these videos.

Read Ronaldo Assis de Moreira from 101greatgoals.blogspot.com’s reaction to the situation here. And read the BBC News’s report on the topic here.