Mediapro makes fresh assault of Sogecable over football

There has been a renewed outbreak of hostilities between Spanish broadcasters Mediapro and Sogecable over rights to show Spanish football matches.

Mediapro has filed a petition with the country’s Council of Ministers to the effect that Sogecable has infringed a ruling by high court the Audencia Nacional (over-riding an earlier decision by competition regulator the CNC) that the latter had failed to respect conditions imposed as part of the authorisation of the merger between Canal Satelite Digital and Vía Digital to form pay TV platform Digital Plus, which set a three-year limit on the exclusive exploitation of football rights. According to Mediapro, Digital Plus’s exploitation of the rights to Real Madrid games in the 2008-09 season broke these conditions.

Sogecable responded with a statement that the court decision referred to by Mediapro dated from April and that the ruling had in any case upheld the decision of the CNC to put the case on ice, only finding against the CNC on the technical grounds that an appeal against the decision was incorrectly handled.