Premiership fights for Sky billions

FOOTBALL'S Premier League will mount a robust defence of its deal with Rupert Murdoch's pay-TV operator BSkyB when it replies to objections from the European Commission this week.

The Commission recently said the deal where the league negotiates the sale of TV rights on behalf of its 20 member clubs was ' tantamount to price fixing'.

The outcome of the dispute will determine the shape of the next TV contract - likely to be the biggest in British broadcasting. Negotiations are due to start this summer.

BSkyB screens 66 live games exclusively each season under a three-year, £1.1 billion deal with the Premier League that ends in 2004. The Commission wants to change the arrangement, allowing live games to be shown by more than one broadcaster. But top football clubs fear that the loss of exclusivity will mean that BSkyB may bid less, weakening the clubs' already precarious finances.

'The broad plan is that we defend the notion of collective selling,' said a league spokesman. 'We will describe the benefits of the present arrangements in plain language to clubs, supporters and broadcasters. We'll also point out that allowing clubs to sell rights individually leads to the chaos we have seen in Italy, Spain and Greece.'

Industry executives suggest one solution might be for the league to offer two live packages: one to Sky for at least 66 games, and another to a terrestrial broadcaster showing six or eight matches a season.

A source close to the discussions said: 'First, we defend what we currently do. Later, there may be a discussion about splitting the rights into smaller packages, but we are a way off that stage at the moment.'