UEFA poised to go Over The Top
President Aleksander Čeferin, speaking after his re-election for a new four-year term, said that the service will initially show women’s and youth matches, as well archive content and behind-the-scenes footage from matches.
However, the UEFA Champions League is unlikely to be available on the platform until 2021 at the earliest given the governing body’s existing contracts with broadcasters around the world.
Ceferin said: “We are fully aware that a revolution is under way and are in the process of agreeing historic partnerships with the world’s leading companies in this field.”
General secretary Theodore Theodoridis said that the service should be available by June, adding that the governing body will look for ways to include its flagship competitions on the platform when its existing rights deals expire.
He added: “We have to be ready for the future and the creation of this platform will solidify UEFA in this case; and as of 2021, where our current deal, our current rights expire, together with the clubs, we will see the possibility, in certain territories, of having some premium live matches.
“Also, as of 2022, with the national associations, [it will be] the same because we have a difference of one year in the cycle of TV rights between club football and national association football. But together, we will decide where and if we are to include some premium live content.”
Talk of UEFA’s plans to launch an OTT platform first emerged in September, when the organisation’s marketing director Guy-Laurent Epstein told Spanish outlet Palco23 that the governing body wanted to give more airtime to categories which do not benefit from as much exposure as men’s soccer.
UEFA would be the first of gthe six continental governing bodies to operate an OTT service.
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