UK sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe has called on the Premier League to prove it is “committed to sport all the way down” after securing its new TV deals with the BBC and BSkyB.
The Premier League confirmed on Tuesday that BSkyB had won live rights from 2010 for a sum in the region of the £1.31 billion after securing a highlights deal with the BBC last week for around £173 million.
It is believed the Premier League hopes improve on the total of £2.7bn brought in on its current deal as two remaining live packages go to a second round of bidding on Friday.
“It's good news that in the present climate they've been able to maintain and improve the package. It's a massive amount of money,” said Sutcliffe. “It's good for the spectator and hopefully good for the sport. What we need to make sure now is that money gets down to the grassroots.
“One of the reasons for the new Sport England plan was to make sure that governing bodies delivered on community sport. Here's a wonderful opportunity now for football, with the new contract, to get that money down to the grassroots levels.”
Sutcliffe called on the Football Association and the Premier League to put aside their differences over unsustainable levels of debt to co-operate on investing money in grassroots projects.
