HAMPSHIRE pub landlady Karen Murphy will learn tomorrow whether she has won her legal battle against the Premier League over the screening of games in her pub using a ''foreign'' television decoder.

European judges are deciding whether the League's power to restrict broadcasting rights within the UK breaches EU single market rules.

Ms Murphy faced a fine and costs of almost £8,000 after she was taken to court by the League for using a Greek decoder in her Portsmouth pub to screen matches, bypassing the League's own controls over where its matches are screened.

She took her case to the European Court of Justice - and although Portsmouth were relegated in 2010, she still hopes for a verdict supporting her right to watch cheap foreign satellite coverage of Premier League games.

Earlier this year the Luxembourg court's Advocate-General backed her case in a legal ''opinion'', declaring: ''European Union law does not make it possible to prohibit the live transmission of Premier League football matches in pubs by means of foreign decoder cards.''

Such opinions have no legal force, but the full court follows the Advocate-General's advice in about 80% of cases.

If Ms Murphy wins it could trigger a major shake-up for the Premier League and its current exclusive agreements with Sky Sports and ESPN.

The League's existing arrangement allows selected broadcasters to screen matches and, in the words of the Advocate-General, ''exploit them economically within their respective broadcasting areas, generally the country in question''.

The licensed broadcaster encrypts its satellite signal, and subscribers can decrypt it using a decoder needing a decoder card.

But Karen took advantage of an offer to UK pubs of imported decoder cards, charging lower prices for screening matches than the charges of the rights-holding broadcaster.

Doing so, said the Advocate-General, was in line with the aims of the EU single market - a border-free zone for goods and services.

''The marketing of broadcasting rights on the basis of territorial exclusivity is tantamount to profiting from the elimination of the internal market.''

The Premier League has already taken action against two suppliers of foreign satellite equipment and a group of pub landlords who used imported decoding equipment to show English Premier League games and avoided the commercial premises subscription fees for Sky.

The case against the landlords has now been settled but the League is continuing action against the suppliers of decoders.

The European judges have been considering the case for seven months since the Advocate-General's opinion - pondering not just EU rules on the single market, but the TV without Frontiers Directive, the Satellites and Copyright Directive and the Copyright and Information Society Directive.