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If the commission waives the conditions, which limit Sky to buying premium sports rights only for satellite technology and for a maximum two years’ duration, it could open the way for a platform-neutral bidding war between Sky, digital-terrestrial service Mediaset Premium and Italy’s dominant telecoms operator, Telecom Italia.

Uefa, European football's governing body, had sent out tenders to broadcasters and agencies on February 6.

He said that “It’s not for me to dictate to a rights holder how they should sell their rights. What we want is the chance to pitch and show what we can do to showcase their sport. There is no such thing as free sports coverage. We all pay our licence fee.”

The offer from France Télévisions, which pays €12 million a year in a deal expiring at the end of this season, was the only one received by the LFP. Bilalian said that it would not be increased, citing the worsening economic situation and the fact that the broadcaster is no longer allowed to carry advertising after 8pm.

Mediapro said that from the 2009-10 season, it will show between two and three matches per week on its wholly-owned GolTV premium football channel, launched last year as a mini-pay channel showing a range of European and Latin American leagues.

Nova had made a strong bid for one of the first-choice packages in the initial bidding last autumn but lost out to free-to-air broadcasters, public-service ERT and commercial channel Mega. Nova is paying just under €5 million a year for the rights, a little less than what On Telecoms had agreed to pay.

For more details see the forthcoming issue of TV Sports Markets.

The deal, announced yesterday, covers the pay-television rights across Latin America excluding Brazil and also includes the rights for Uefa's second-tier club competition, the Europa League.

At present, state broadcaster Canal 7 shows the weekly Friday night league match, which it simulcasts with pay-channel TyC Sports. But TyC recently announced that from next season, starting in August, the Friday match would be broadcast exclusively on pay-television.

The deal covers the rights in over 40 African countries.

Supersport will pay about $7.5 million a year in the deal, which runs from 2009 to 2012 and covers almost 200 days international cricket played in West Indies, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.