Russian state broadcaster VGTRK has agreed an outline deal with the CAA Eleven agency for the rights to the qualifying games for the Uefa Euro 2016 national team football competition.
VGTRK said its pay-television sports channel Sport 1 will broadcast all games, while qualifiers featuring the Russian national team will also be broadcast by the Russia-1 and Russia-2 channels.
VGTRK’s head of sports broadcasting, Alexander Taschin, said: “The negotiations with the owners (of the rights) had a long duration. We are glad that we managed to reach a compromise and sign a contract with conditions that suit.
“For the first time in the history of Russian sports television qualifying round matches of the European Football Championship will be shown in this volume on the channels of RTR (VGTRK), which certainly would be a great gift to our viewers at the start of the new TV season.”
CAA Eleven is brokering the rights sales for the European qualifiers on behalf of Uefa, European football’s governing body. TV Sports Markets understands the deal with VGTRK was a last-minute pre-agreement ahead of the start of the Euro 2016 qualifying campaign on September 7. It is thought that the contract is yet to be finalised.
Russia defeated Liechtenstein 4-0 in its opening game on Monday.