Premier League Football will continue to be aired on UK TV next season

ON May 12, the UK Department for Digital, Media Culture and Sport wrote to the Premier League confirming that it had no objection to it rolling over its UK TV contracts.

Under normal circumstances the rights would have been put to open tender, but ministers said they were “minded” to grant an exclusion order due to the problems to football caused by the pandemic.

The agreement of all the clubs and rights holders — Sky Sports, BT Sport, Amazon Prime Video and BBC Sport — means the existing three-year deal will be rolled over and run until 2025.

According to the BBC, the deal will be worth £4.7 billion (€5.2 billion) which was the amount agreed in 2018.

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden and Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said there were three key factors in allowing the exclusion order — the importance of football clubs to their communities, the “inherent value in the football pyramid”, and the Premier League’s strength as one of the country’s “soft power levers for the United Kingdom to attract investment”.

As part of the new deal, BT Sport announced that in order to help with fixture congestion, they will change their Saturday lunchtime game to an evening slot when teams involved have played in Europe on the previous Wednesday.

The Premier League has undertaken to provide an additional £100 million (€110 million) to help fund teams in the lower leagues and women’s football over the next four years.