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EU settles with English Premier LeagueBRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Union struck a deal Tuesday with the English FA Premier League, settling an antitrust dispute over one of the richest television contracts in European sports and raising hopes that live Premier League games would soon be available on free broadcast television.
The deal will force British Sky Broadcasting Group to shed its exclusive rights to live Premier League soccer games as early as next season. Under the settlement, up to eight Premier League games per season will be shown by another broadcaster than BSkyB, EU Competition Commissioner Mario Monti said. There are no other specific pay-TV companies centering on sports in Britain at the moment, so the rights probably would be sublicensed to either the BBC or ITV. "For the first time in the history of the Premier League free-to-air television will have a realistic opportunity to show live Premier League matches," EU Competition Commissioner Mario Monti said at a news conference in Strasbourg, France. In August, the English Premier League awarded a 1.024-billion pound ($1.78 billion) exclusive deal to pay-TV channel BSkyB for the 2004-05, 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons -- a deal Monti called bad news for soccer fans. Monti insisted the contract exacerbated antitrust worries that the Rupert Murdoch-owned BSkyB grabbed too much of the market, with too little soccer left for free TV. English clubs feared a renegotiating of the contract would cause big losses and drive some clubs toward bankruptcy. The Commission however did not relish a protracted fight that might end up in court and therefore sought a settlement. © Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material
may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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