UEFA Announces New Broadcast Deals for EURO 2008

NYON, December 8: UEFA has unveiled new broadcast deals in
the U.S., Asia, the Middle East and Latin America for EURO 2008, which is being
held June 7 to June 29, 2008, in Austria and Switzerland.

"We will have [a level of] coverage of the European
Championship which we have never had before," said UEFA’s chief executive,
Lars-Christer Olsson. "We invited [broadcasters] in August to tender for
the rights for the European Championship outside Europe and we got some very
positive proposals from some individual markets. We decided to make direct
contracts in certain territories—the United States, India, the Middle
East, North Africa and Hong Kong."

ESPN has been granted the rights for North America and the
pay-TV rights for Latin America. ESPN Star Sports has bagged the rights for the
Indian subcontinent. The ESPN/STAR joint venture also acquired the rights to
sublicense EURO 2008 to South Asian terrestrial broadcasters. Al Jazeera will
air the matches in the Middle East and North Africa. And the broadband platform
PCCW has secured the rights for Hong Kong.

UEFA has appointed SportFive to represent the media rights
to EURO 2008 in all of the remaining markets outside Europe. SportFive already
represents the competition in all European markets.