AVS board meets to discuss TV rights dispute

The board of Audiovisual Sport, a company that hold the Primera Liga rights and is a division of Sogecable, will meet Thursday to deliberate on its feud over broadcasting rights with Mediapro.

Catalan broadcaster TV3 owns 20 percent of AVS, and reportedly pushed for the meeting, according to the El Economista newspaper. Sogecable owns the other 80 percent of AVS.

Mediapro says the contract for the league's domestic broadcasting rights is invalid because of a feud concerning the ownership of AVS, the league's rights-holder until the end of the 2008-2009 season.

Sogecable has filed a EUR 20 million lawsuit against Mediapro, stating that commercial broadcaster La Sexta, which is partly owned by Mediapro, had aired three matches the first weekend of the season, unlawfully.

Mediapro said that it had agreed to a provisional proposal by Daniel Margalef, AVS managing director, to return to last season's system where one match each weekend is available free-to-air by Mediapro's La Sexta channel, one on Sogecable's Canal Plus channel, which is pay television and the remainder on Sogecable's Digital Plus, which is pay per view.

AVS was not allowed to enter Camp Nou last weekend to cover the match between Barcelona and Sevilla. The match was aired by rival broadcasters on free to air television.

Mediapro supported Barcelona's decision to exclude AVS, and La Sexta, Mediapro's free to air channel, did show the match, due to TV3 sharing its signal with La Sexta.

TV3's five-year contract to broadcast Barcelona matches will conclude at the end of this season.

Source: euFootball.BIZ © Copyright 2006 - All rights reserved.