PL-Brussels disagreement rumbles on

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The Premier League (PL) will continue its fight against the European Commission's plan to split up its broadcasting rights, the league's chief executive Richard Scudamore said. The two sides reached a provisional deal in December 2003 to end UK satellite broadcaster BSkyB's exclusive rights to televise English Premier League matches when the current contract expires from 2007, but are now sparring over how the rights will be divided.

The Premier League wants one package of live football television rights out of the six available to go to a broadcaster other than BSkyB. The commission is demanding that no more than half of matches go to a single broadcaster. Brussels rejected the league's proposal in June and is now preparing a statement of objections detailing its case. "There is nothing, absolutely nothing in our June '05 proposals that is inconsistent with the December '03 commitment as precisely constructed," Scudamore told in a news conference in Brussels. But EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said the offer was insufficient. "Neither the commission nor national authorities in this case believe that proposals adequately reflect the provisional agreement reached ".

According to a media report, the British government has intervened in the long-running disagreement. Sports Minister Richard Caborn said: "The government has to remain neutral, but believes both sides will have to give ground if there is to be a settlement. This is a real opportunity for them to thrash out a deal." The ‘intervention’ comes days before the two parties in the disagreement meet in Brussels to attempt to reach a solution. Failure to reach a compromise could lead to Brussels going ahead with its “statement of objection” and an acrimonious court battle that would delay the auction of TV rights for the 2007-10 seasons which is due to be finalized by August 2006.

The PL and EC rumble is not the only issue threats BSkyB’s rights control over British football. It is likely that broadcasting groupings with enough financial strength and audience coverage may also bid for the rights In the previous bid last round, the BSkyB was the highest bidder for all the ‘packages’ of live rights offered up by the PL and after protest by the Commission no other broadcaster bid enough for sub-licenses to take away Sky’s exclusivity over live matches. Dan Chambers, controller of Channel Five, the free-to-air terrestrial station in the UK owned by Luxembourg-based European broadcaster RTL, stated that the channel wanted to bid for the rights to live games for the seasons 2006/07 to 2009/2010. “Everyone is going to go after it. It will be the subject of a huge bidding war,” he said at a Broadcasting Press Guild.