The Scottish Professional Football League is free to negotiate new individual rights deals with individual broadcasters around the world from this (Monday) morning after terminating its overseas rights distribution deal with the Chinese-owned MP & Silva agency, according to the Daily Record newspaper.
The deal has been torn up after the agency failed to keep up with its rights fee instalments, the report said.
The delays over the rights fees meant that the Aberdeen v Rangers and Hearts v Celtic matches so far this season were not available to viewers in the Middle East, Australia and North Africa, the newspaper added.
MP & Silva had a nine-year deal to distribute the SPFL’s overseas rights, from 2014-15 to 2022-23.
A source told the newspaper that it remained a possibility that the SPFL strikes another distribution deal with a different agency.
“If we get the right money that’s the easiest thing to do,” the source was quoted as saying.
“But there is such strong interest from broadcasters all over the world that we could deal directly with them and sell the Scottish game to them individually. It’s an exciting opportunity to get better value for the game.”