Gazprom-Media chief says ‘unified proposal’ made for World Cup rights

Gazprom-Media chief executive Dmitry Chernyshenko has said Russian broadcasters have put forward a “unified proposal” to world football’s governing body as the rights to the 2018 World Cup in its host country remain on the table.

Russia’s largest media holding group owns Match TV, one of the entities involved in negotiations for the rights to the World Cup and the forthcoming Confederations Cup.

The Telesport agency is understood to have been negotiating with Fifa since October for the rights on behalf of a consortium of state broadcaster VGTRK; state-controlled commercial broadcaster Channel One; and Match TV.

Fifa is said to be seeking $120m (€110m) for the rights, with Russian broadcasters having paid around $32m for rights to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

Chernyshenko told state news agency Tass: “As a group of three media holdings, we have put forward a unified proposal about the cost of the broadcasting rights, and agreed on how we apportion them among us.

“Differences remain between us and Fifa as we do not want to bear serious losses while buying those TV rights. Regretfully, the negotiations are taking too long.

“I think that common sense will eventually prevail and we are able to solve the matter in shortest time possible. I heard that Fifa requested our colleagues to confirm the commercial terms that we had proposed, we will surely do so and hope for this issue to be resolved.”

Fifa secretary-general Fatma Samoura expressed confidence last month that a “compromise” will be reached over the broadcast rights to the 2018 World Cup in host nation Russia. The Confederations Cup is due to kick off in Saint Petersburg on June 17.