Play-offs stay on screen as ITV Digital ceases to exist

The second legs of the Nationwide League First Division play-off semi-finals will be screened live on ITV Sport, the League said last night. The matches, between Wolves and Norwich tonight and between Millwall and Birmingham tomorrow, will now be shown free to digital users after ITV Digital effectively ceased to exist this morning.

John Nagle, of the Football League, said: "The ITV Sport channel is to become a free-to-air service. The league is pleased that this will allow fans to see the remaining scheduled-for-broadcast play-off games live on TV."

ITV Digital's administrators, Deloitte & Touche, finally pulled the plug on the stricken broadcaster yesterday and switched off all its pay television channels at 7am today. This move leaves the league contemplating the way forward in two key areas. The first is whether to take legal action against Carlton and Granada, ITV Digital's co-owners, and if so when. The League has consistently maintained that the two media giants are legally liable for ITV Digital and therefore should pick up the tab for the £178.5m that ITV Digital still owes the League.

David Burns, the Chief Executive of the League, has said that the League is prepared to sue Carlton and Granada for £500m if and when ITV Digital goes bust. This morning he will have to decide whether he wants to pursue a lengthy case that may end in defeat.

The second pressing issue for the League to deal with is where the Nationwide League matches will be shown from next season onwards. The likely contenders for the rights number three at most. BSkyB could be in the running although it is far from certain whether it is any longer interested in such non-premium fare. The BBC has also reportedly shown interest, as have bizarrely enough, Carlton and Granada, who could yet try to obtain the rights at a knockdown price.

The demise of ITV Digital has been a long time coming, and many within the game felt that, when the League signed a three-year £315m deal with the broadcaster in summer 2000, ITV Digital had overpaid. Not that the League or any of the 72 clubs in the First, Second or Third Division were going to complain. The bonanza simply allowed higher spending on more players at higher levels of pay.

It has been estimated by the League that between 30 and 50 clubs face severe financial difficulties, if not ruin. While there is no doubt that swinging cuts will need to be made across the board – indeed, the likes of Sheffield Wednesday, Stockport, Lincoln, Halifax and others have already started releasing groups of players – it is thought unlikely that many clubs, if any, will actually go bust completely and disappear from the football map. There will be redundancies, certainly, and some rather unpleasant holes in the accounts of clubs for some time to come, but a collapse of the League's structure due to a decimation of its members is unlikely.

Reports that a majority of the League's 72 clubs are on the verge of placing themselves into administration en masse were played down yesterday by senior figures within the game. The plan, believed to be the brainchild of Bradford City's chairman Geoffrey Richmond, supposedly envisaged a situation whereby the Government would be pushed into action to help the ailing football industry.

It is understood that Richmond's lawyers have advised him that if many clubs went into administration simultaneously they may have a better chance of bypassing some of the restraints on off-loading players.

The League and the players' union, the PFA, forbids any in-contract player to have his deal unilaterally terminated or altered. Richmond's plan is understood to have received little support.