By David Gold
August 16 – An investigation into Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Italia by Italy’s competition authority for its acquisition of the rights to air the 2010 and 2014 World Cups has been extended to include the News Corp subsidiary’s UEFA Champions League rights.
Sky Italia was accused in an investigation launched last November by the Competitions and Markets Authority of abusing their position by acquiring exclusive rights to show the World Cups, which could be a violation of anti-competition laws.
Sky Italia believe that they are innocent of the charge as some games were still available on free-to-air TV, and it followed a practise used for previous World Cups.
The organisation also claimed that the investigation came about as a result of findings by Italian media conglomerate Mediaset, which is owned by the country’s Prime Minister and AC Milan owner Silvio Berlusconi.
The Competitions and Markets authority said in their weekly bulletin that the acquiring of Champions League rights could constitute a similar violation of competition laws on the basis that it restricted competitors’ ability to show games from the competition.
Sky Italia responded to the news with a forceful defence of the deals, though they added that they would comply fully with the investigators and co-operate with the inquiry.
“Sky Italia is astonished at the decision…the authority initiative is unexpected and unjustified,” the company said in a statement.
“The Antitrust Authority’s initiative appears to be unwarranted and completely groundless.
“In the same tender, a second Italian broadcaster acquired exclusive free-to-air rights to all of the matches in the same seasons as well as once again acquiring fully exclusive pay-TV rights to the Europa League.
“Sky Italia insists that its offer for the UEFA Champions League rights was fully compliant with antitrust regulations, with international practice and with the strict requirements of the UEFA tender.”
News Corporation had agreed a deal in 2003 with the European Commission which restricted their rights to bid for television coverage.
It stipulated that Sky could not bid for fully exclusive rights across all platforms for sports coverage or enter the free to air market.
That agreement expires at the end of this year, but the Champions League rights which are being disputed begin in 2012-13, and Sky’s bids for exclusivity across two of three packages for European football is being investigated, though News Corp believe it to be legitimate as the existing agreement will have expired by 2012.
Mediaset won the bid for the third package which Sky opted not to go in for, giving them exclusive rights to show Champions League and Europa League football.
The authority has also said that the conclusions of the investigation would be known in June 2012.
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