England fans face Ukraine game blackout

11 April 2012

England fans might only be able to see Fabio Capello's side clinch World Cup qualification on the internet.

While the Three Lions will book their place at South Africa 2010 by beating Croatia at Wembley on Wednesday night, if they fail to overcome Slaven Bilic's men - and the Ukraine defeat Belarus on the same night, the next chance they will get is in Dnepropetrovsk on October 10.

TV rights for the encounter against the Ukraine were sold to Setanta by international football agency Kentaro.

However, the collapse of the pay-TV operator earlier this year led Kentaro to go back into the market for an alternative.

But with ITV, Sky and Channel Five showing no interest in showing the game, and tentative discussions with the BBC getting nowhere, it currently looks as though there will be a TV blackout of the game entirely.

Instead, Philipp Grothe, chief executive of the Kentaro Group, has now instructed digital sport specialist Perform, to market and stream the match online, on a pay-per-view basis.

"We have spoken to every traditional UK broadcaster and currently have no offer on the table," said Grothe.

"We therefore feel the internet is the most viable option to deliver an important England game directly to the fans.

"It will be the first time in history that an England game has had an exclusive web broadcast."

The FA are bound to be uncomfortable with the situation, even though Perform did provide coverage of UEFA Cup matches involving Manchester City and Tottenham last year.

Having an important England qualifier available purely on the internet is a different matter entirely, not least because such a large number of supporters have no method of accessing such a medium.

However, as the "away" team, the FA are powerless to do anything to prevent it and must cross their fingers that some kind of agreement is reached over the next month.

ITV have the rights to home England games and under the terms of their contract have taken over Setanta's broadcast rights for away friendlies, such as the one in Holland last month.

That aspect of the deal does not cover qualifying games and as ITV are trying to operate in a depressed advertising market have not felt in a position to make a bid.

The FA released a statement to outline they have no say in who purchases the rights for the game.

It read: "The FA would like to make clear that the television broadcast rights for England's World Cup qualifying match in Ukraine next month are sold by the Ukrainian FA and their agents.

"While the FA decides which channel will broadcast England's home matches (currently free to air on ITV), we have no control of how the broadcast rights to away games are arranged.

"However, having a legal way to watch the game on the internet is good news for a growing segment of the viewing public. The FA has the highest regard for Perform Group to do this well.

"But we would obviously like people to be able to watch all of England's games on regular TV as well.

"As the match in Ukraine will be played in October, we hope it is still possible for an agreement to be reached by the Ukrainian FA and their agents with a UK TV broadcaster."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in