By Ashling O’Connor, October 7, 2009
Fans keen to follow the progress of Theo Walcott, one of England’s brightest World Cup prospects, will have to pay for the privilege after Chelsea TV secured the rights to Friday’s European Under-21 Championship qualifier against the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
The club channel, available to subscribers for £5.87 a month, will screen the game from the Ricoh Arena in Coventry after rival broadcasters expressed a lack of interest. While there is no minimum contract for Chelsea TV, it is only available to those already signed up to Sky or Tiscali, although there are limited schedules available online.
The news will compound anger among supporters forced to pay up to £11.99 to sit in front of a computer on Saturday evening to watch the senior England team face Ukraine.
The World Cup qualifier will be shown exclusively on a paid-for internet channel in a broadcasting experiment that has ramifications beyond a single game. Politicians, broadcasters and national governing bodies regard it as a test case that may shape the media landscape under an independent review into the way sport is consumed in Britain.
An eight-strong panel led by David Davies, the former executive director of the FA, meets this week to discuss issues including how England’s World Cup qualifying games are broadcast.
The adverse reaction to the England blackout this weekend will strengthen the argument, made by fans’ groups and the BBC, that they should be added to a list of protected events.
Steven Powell, the director of policy at the Football Supporters’ Federation, said: “The Government should ensure that all national team games are available for those who can’t afford subscriptions or pay-per-view.”
The list, most recently revised in 1998, stipulates that only World Cup finals matches are screened free to air.Adding qualifiers to the list, as Ireland has done, would guarantee free-to-air coverage because rights to England’s away games are held by foreign associations keen to sell to the highest bidder. Home qualifiers are shown on terrestrial television after the FA sold its rights to ITV.
The idea of creating a framework in which fans could freely follow England’s journey from qualification to the World Cup finals is gaining traction among policymakers.
While the Ukraine fixture, originally bought for £5 million by Setanta, the defunct pay-TV operator, is a dead rubber, the principle of free access to England games still matters. “If this was the game that decided whether England qualified, there would have been a riot,” a source close to the matter said.
The review panel will also consider whether the World Cup finals should continue to be protected in full. Fifa and Uefa have argued for a delisting of group matches, as is the case in most European countries.
The review of listed events — which includes the Olympics, the Grand National and the Wimbledon finals — is expected to conclude this month.
The panel will submit its recommendations to Ben Bradshaw, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, who will decide whether or not to amend the legislation.
Many broadcasters are happy with the mix of free and paid-for programming, but most sports governing bodies want more freedom to sell to the pay-TV market. After nine months of exhaustive analysis, the panel is expected to recommend some changes. The Australian model, which gives free-to-air broadcasters first option on key sports events but does not exclude pay-TV operators from meeting consumer demand, is being studied.
Simon Chadwick, professor of sport business at Coventry University, said: “Saturday’s game may well be the start of a new era in broadcasting that many of us may never be happy to accept.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/international/article6863732.ece
