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Champions League TV rights deal may be last of its kind

Wednesday 27 April 2011 19:00 EDT
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Sky Sports and ITV have reached a new £400m three-year deal for Champions League broadcasting rights, although senior Uefa official William Gaillard has warned future contracts may be less generous.

Recent advice from European Union advocate general Juliane Kokott suggested that selling TV rights in separate EU member states was against European law. Gaillard said yesterday, should the European Court of Justice agree, it would shrink the TV deals: "This may force us to sell the rights on a Europe-wide basis, which would prevent us from identifying individual national TV pools."

The British deal is the largest in Europe. It allows ITV to show one live Tuesday night game, while Sky Sports will show the others.

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