FIFA Signals The End Of Free To Air World Cup

FIFA, the international governing body for football, has announced that it is to allow pay-television channels to bid for the broadcasting rights to the 2002 World Cup. The move raises the possibility of all but a handful of matches being broadcast solely by pay-TV cable and satellite companies, although FIFA has guaranteed that matches involving British teams, plus semi-finals, the final and the opening ceremony, will still be screened by terrestrial broadcasters.

Until now FIFA has always insisted that matches be made available to as wide an audience as possible. This meant games were usually shared equally between terrestrial broadcasters, the BBC and ITV. FIFA has now decided to sell the rights to next World Cup, held in South Korea and Japan in 2002, to a German company called Prisma Kirsch, which will in turn sell them on to the highest bidder.

The move is a further blow to the terrestrial broadcasters, which, at beginning of the ’90s, lost the rights to top flight football to BSkyB in a deal worth £304 million. Over the weekend the BBC also failed in its bid to take the Ryder Cup back from Sky in what was the first major sports bidding battle since Greg Dyke was appointed as the Corporation’s new director general (see Sky Extends Ryder Cup Contract By Three Years).

FIFA has stipulated that live World Cup matches will not be allowed to be sold as pay-per-view events; only highlights can be offered on a PPV basis. The matter is further complicated for the majority of European broadcasters due to the nine-hour time delay between the Far East and Europe. The time difference means that most live matches would be broadcast when viewers are either at work or school.