Mário Figueiredo, president of the Portuguese Liga, has said that the football league will appeal to the European Commission if the country’s media regulator, the ERC, refuses to block a proposed deal for telecommunications company Portugal Telecom to acquire a 25-per-cent stake in Portuguese pay-television broadcaster Sport TV.
Figueiredo said that the transaction would further strengthen the “dominant” position of the Olivedesportos agency, which is controlled by businessman Joaquim Oliveira, who is also a co-owner of Sport TV.
Figueiredo believes that the deal would reduce competition for the league’s rights – which he is hoping to centralise – with Portugal Telecom set to join the Zon Multimedia and Sportinveste media companies as a shareholder in Sport TV.
“This [centralisation of rights] will only happen if the ERC opposes this merger of Portugal Telecom and Zon for Sport TV,” he told the A Bola news website. “There is no use centralising the rights if we only have one possible buyer that exercises a monopoly and makes the rules.”
He added: “Joaquim Oliveira has a monopoly position in the market for acquiring television rights from clubs, and he has a substantial shareholding (in Sport TV) at the same time.”
Figueiredo said that he is expecting a law to be introduced through parliament to switch the rights sales model from the current club-by-club approach to a centralised process that is “similar to Italy.”