Ten Sports & World’s Best Club Football
By Fatima Hussain

TEN Sports has signed an exclusive agreement to televise the best club football in the world, by signing up the broadcast rights to the next three seasons of UEFA champions league football in the Indian sub-continent. The new deal will start in September 2006 and will include 1,000 hours of Europe’s leading football action.

From 1955 the greatest clubs in Europe have competed for the most famous trophy in club football, the European Cup. Since the competition was re-launched in 1992/3 as the UEFA Champions League, the tournament has become even bigger. It is guaranteed to feature the top sides from all of Europe’s premier leagues and the greatest football stars in the world.

Defending champions Barcelona will this season face a tough challenge from 31 other teams, including the best sides from England, Italy, Spain and Germany. European football in general is also coming off an incredible high, given its dominance in the recently concluded FIFA world cup.

UEFA Ceo Lars-Christer Olsson said "We are delighted to welcome Ten Sports as a new broadcast partner for the UEFA Champions League as from next season. This agreement will undoubtedly benefit football fans throughout the entire Indian sub continent. We look forward to working with Ten Sports to build up the UEFA Champions League in this important region"

Ten Sports CEO Chris McDonald “This is a great step forward for us and further improves an amazing year for Ten Sports with India’s cricket tours of the West Indies, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, the mens and womens hockey world cups, Grand Slam tennis from France and New York and the world’s top golf events. We have now added the best club football in the world to our sporting line-up”

Vice President Programming Peter Hutton added “We will have our own live studio shows around each day of champions league football, bringing goals and action from every game played that day, further enhancing the viewing experience for a tournament that is growing in stature every year and is by far the most competitive club football in the world”

Only launched in April 2002, Taj TV’s Ten Sports is watched by more viewers than any other sports channel in the sub-continent and is available in nearly 50 million cable/ satellite households worldwide. In just a short span of three years, Ten Sports has also become the world’s biggest producers of cricket.

The Channel broadcasts cricket from Sharjah, the West Indies, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Morocco throughout the Indian sub-continent and Asia, as well as in Europe and the Middle East.

Other cricket properties broadcast by Ten Sports in certain territories include internationals from India, the World Cup 2003 and the ICC Champions Trophy 2004.●

The writer is Business Executive. Email: Fatimah @ tajtv.com

© 2006 Fatima Hussain