Under the terms of the new three-year deal, ITV will have first pick of the match to show live on Tuesday night and highlights, while Sky Sports have the rights to air live all Champions League matches except for the games on ITV. Sky Sports also has the rights for delayed broadcasts and highlights on both nights.
However, William Gaillard, adviser to UEFA president Michel Platini, said a European Court of Justice (ECJ) case could force a major shake-up in the sale of TV rights across the continent in future tenders. The Premier League also fears that its legal battle against pub landlady Karen Murphy, who has used a Greek satellite decoder to screen live matches, could affect its TV income.
Gaillard told Press Association Sport: “This may force us to sell the rights on a Europe-wide basis, which would prevent us from identifying individual national TV pools. That will be bad news for clubs in big TV markets such as England.”
The European Union's advocate general Juliane Kokott has already advised that the case means that selling TV rights in separate countries goes against EU law and the European Court of Justice is expected to make a final decision later this year. The current deal with Sky Sports and ITV, reported to be worth around £400 million, is the biggest for the competition in Europe.
