England’s World Cup qualifier will be screened exclusively online

England’s World Cup qualifier against Ukraine this weekend will only be screened on the internet following the collapse of Setanta.

The media company Perform will stream the match on a pay-per-view basis after the international agency Kentaro failed to agree rights offers with another British broadcaster when the pay-TV platform Setanta collapsed earlier this year.

As a result, football fans will be forced to pay £4.99 to watch the match on Saturday, which will be broadcast on the internet for the first time at www.ukrainevengland.com.

However, viewers can only purchase a live pass for that price until Wednesday – from Thursday onwards the pass will cost between £9.99 and £11.99.

The game kicks off at 5.15pm and can also be seen live at Odeon cinemas across the country, but it will not be available in pubs.

The rights to the match reverted to Kentaro when Setanta stopped broadcasting, and after weeks of talks, the agency appointed Perform to stream the game.  Perform, a digital sports specialist, streams over 15,000 events a year, which attract millions of users to its site every month.

Peter Silverstone, managing director of Kentaro, said: “You will watch as you would any other streaming on the internet, like YouTube or the BBC iPlayer – there will be a pop-up player that will show the match in a very good quality stream.”