Setanta will be covering half as many Premier League games as a result of their new deal. Denis Hurley ponders the implications
Where now for Setanta? The Irish company’s attempt to play hardball in the recent Premier League live TV rights negotiations ended with it winning only half of what it previously had. They will be paying £159 million to show 23 live games on Saturday evenings for the three years from 2010-11, down from the 46 of the previous deal as Monday night games were lost.
Pubs are asserting their right to show matches on foreign channels and games are being fed online. Dave Lee looks at how our viewing habits are threatening Sky’s stranglehold
Broadcasters, football clubs and the Premier League have stepped up their pursuit of pubs using foreign subscriptions to show live games – and the battle is going all the way to the European Court of Justice.
What would you change about football? WSC writers look ahead to 2009 and ask, sensibly enough, for preparation for a global dystopia and for players to learn the laws, which will never catch on
After sneaking an away win at Bristol City a few years ago, Brentford created a minor stir by warming down on the pitch within minutes of the final whistle. Home fans regarded the winners’ touchline-to-touchline trudging to be “unnecessarily provocative” and, via a flurry of letters to the local paper, demanded an apology from the club.
Football fans have, on the most part, been treated with disdain by politicians. The Football Supporters' Federation are now campaigning to make the laws fairer, as Bruce Wilkinson reports
Often in the firing line between the rights of the individual and the power of the state, football supporters are once again the first to feel the force of new legislation.
Michel Platini is trying to level out football’s financial playing fields. It’s a big task, as Ben Lyttleton reports
As Michel Platini knows only too well, timing is everything in politics. It is one of the reasons why, of late, we have heard an increase in the UEFA president’s complaints about one of his biggest bugbears, the signing of foreign players at a young age. Platini wants to implement Sepp Blatter’s plan of a six-plus-five quota to the game, which would limit foreign players but currently does not conform to European employment laws.