BBC loses Welsh football to Sky

Welsh international football games will be shown on Sky Sports instead of the BBC under a new four-year deal announced today (Thursday).

The Football Association of Wales (FAW) also awarded Sky the broadcast righhts to all domestic club matches in the country.

"We are delighted with this agreement with a new partner, Sky Sports," said David Collins, FAW secretary general. From next season, we look forward to seeing more Welsh football on our screens with increased television coverage of not only full internationals but other representative matches and the domestic game. And the financial input will also help us to further develop Welsh football at all levels."

The BBC said it was "very disappointed" to lose the rights as it had put a "lot of support" into Welsh football into recent years.

In a statement, BBC Wales controller Menna Richards said: "We are very disappointed that the FAW have taken this decision given BBC Wales's support for Welsh football over so many years. We don't think it is in the best interests of Welsh fans that live coverage will now disappear from terrestrial television.

"This week, we presented an improved offer in order that audiences in Wales and beyond could benefit from the BBC's unrivalled reach and quality of coverage. We offered the FAW more coverage and much more money than ever before and we believed that we had reached agreement on domestic coverage. We made it clear throughout the bidding process that we wanted to secure the rights but not at any price and we did not feel we could justify to the licence fee-payer our bidding any higher.

"Sadly, the FAW's decision means that Welsh football supporters will now have to pay subscriptions well in excess of the licence fee if they want to watch Wales play live. Despite today's decision, BBC Wales remains committed to covering the best of Welsh sport, in both English and Welsh, on radio, television and online."

Sky's coverage begins with the World Cup qualifier against Northern Ireland on September 8.