At 6pm, the FA and the BBC will announce a five-year deal that hands the rights to live FA Cup, Worthington Cup, and (this is the biggy) all home England internationals to the BBC, in partnership with Sky. ITV can have their recorded highlights - the BBC is bringing live English football back to free-to-air TV. At least the FA care about quality programming rather than money. All rejoice the resurrection of MOTD!

not the Worthington cup, that is in the Football League rights which Sky have and ITV have highlights.

Ste

And MOTD was never going to die. They still had FA Cup highlights anyway. So its really just the same except MOTD live is more alive that it was with live FA Cup games.

Grrrrrr, stop saying I'm wrong, I hate that http://www.soccergaming.com/ubb/smile.gif

You are right though. However, the BBC is alleged to be leading ITV in the race for the Football League, which, if won, would allow the BBC to show occasional Nationwide League games, as well as highlights and Worthington Cup games.

Heres more bad news im afraid! Sky have lost the rights to the Nationwide league with the rights going to On Digital on ITV. They will show 80 matches from Div 1,2,3 and Worthington Cup matches. The Worthington Cup final will be on ITV though. However On Sport may be forced to broadcast on Sky like Sky Sports has to be on On Digital and Cable

And it gets worse! Ive just found out that there will be 88 matches but all on Pay Per View!!! But how many people will pay around £10 to watch York v Rochdale (no disrespect to York or Rochdale they where the first Div 3 teams that came into my head!

Ste

Wrong. Some games will be available as P-P-V, but there will be 88 live games that are not P-P-V. There will also be 18 live games on ITV throughout the season. Worthington Cup matches from QF onwards will be live on ITV.

Here's a few small words of consolation from a Dutch fan. I was shocked to hear the news, because watching the Premiership highlights is also one of MY highlights of the weekend, but.. They tried this in Holland twice, and both experiments failed. The last time the football rights were transferred to a new commercial network that could be watched for something like 3 pounds a month, which I think is not even that expensive. However, the new network was blatantly ignored and went bankrupt within three months. Guess what? Everything is back to normal again! There's always hope......

Cheers,

King Kenny.

One thing says it all...
PAY-PER-VIEW SUCKS!

Why should we put money into the greedy TV people's coffers? It would be a lot cheaper to actually go to the game itself!!!