EU to bring anti-trust charges against premier league

EU officials hinted today they were preparing to bring antitrust charges against the English Premier League over how it sells television rights for its soccer games.

The European Commission has been investigating the Premier League and BSkyB over their three year television deal, one of the richest in European sports.

Commission spokeswoman Amelia Torres said results would be sent to the parties ”very shortly now.”

She declined to comment on the results, but noted that Competition Commissioner Mario Monti said in October that he had “serious concerns” about the deal signed last August. The Premier League awarded a £1 billion TV deal to BSkyB for the 2004-05, 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons.

“Clearly we were unhappy with the outcome of the recent bidding process,” she said. “We still believe its wrong to have one purchaser.”

Monti said in October that the contract exacerbated worries that BSkyB grabbed too much of the market. “We are concerned that competition in respect to these very important rights has been eliminated in the UK,” he said then.

The Premier League hoped that its system of selling off the rights in four packages instead of one would meet the anticompetitive objections from the European Commission.

Under the deal, 138 matches would be shown live on BSkyB, primarily on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

The BBC won the rights to broadcast highlights in Britain over the same period, for £150.8m.

The Commission will soon send the Premier League a formal ”statement of objections.” The League would then have two months to respond to the charges.