The EC announced that it will shortly be sending a letter to the two companies detailing the problems of exclusivity that are contained within the three-year TV rights agreement after which BSkyB and the Premier League will have two months to respond.
The Commission added that changes to the way the Premier League sold the rights, introduced after the EU launched a probe into the deals last year, had done nothing to dispel its concerns.
Stated EU competition commissioner Mario Monti: "The announcement so far made by the Premier League suggests that BSkyB will have an even greater monopoly over live TV rights than was the case in the past.
"This is bad for competition on broadcasting markets and it is bad for consumers."
The Premier League had tried to get around the EC's concerns in its new rights negotiations by separating the live rights into four packages of which BSkyB successfully bid for each segment.
The EU authorities are campaigning for TV broadcast deals in the UK to be modelled on the way football governing body UEFA sells rights to the Champions League games - a bidding process that has led to the UK coverage being shared between terrestrial and pay-TV channels.
Explained Monti: "The Commission has proved with its UEFA Champions League decision that joint selling arrangements can be compatible with competition rules."
The European Commission is to write to UK pay-TV platform BSkyB and the FA Premier League detailing the mediator's list of objections to the new £1billion TV rights contract which begins in August 2004.
