Romania to auction football rights

[timesurfer]

Published: 10.41 Europe/London, April 1, 2011 by Chris Dziadul

Romania will hold an auction for the rights to its premier football league Liga 1 for the next three seasons this coming Monday (April 4).

ZF reports that four companies – the public broadcaster TVR, national commercial station Antena 1, OTE/Deutsche Telekom backed incumbent telco Romtelecom and RCS&RDS, the country's leading cable and DTH platform operator – have bought tender documents.

The auction, which is being organised by the Romanian Professional Football League (LPF), will be for a total of seven packages.

It is felt that they are only of real value if acquired in their entirety by just one bidder rather than several.

The current rights, also for a period of three seasons, were secured by a consortium of Antena 1 and RCS&RDS for €102 million.