18-04-2024, 11:18 PM
Quite the bad week for English football and by extension for TNT Sports' bosses.
Four of the five English clubs in Europe this week were eliminated, with only Aston Villa surviving to the semi-finals. This has all but guaranteed that only four English teams will be in the Champions League next season, with it now looking unlikely Tottenham or Manchester United would qualify for the main competition (England had over 85% chance of acheiving the bonus place before last week incidentally). Results from last week also means Scotland will lose its automatic place in the UCL league phase for 2025/26.
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Also a bad week for the bosses at FIFA. The new Club World Cup's European qualifiers have been confirmed. Barcleona will miss out, but FC Salzburg do qualify! The two English entrants will be Manchester City and Chelsea, so another blow with the biggest draws in Liverpool and Manchester United not qualifying.
I wonder how much interest this will get from broadcasters. It will be post-season, so a quiet time for Sky and TNT on the football front, so likely one of them will pick it up if the price is right. It will reportedly be on the East coast of the US to be more suitable for European broadcasters. A week's overlap with the Women's Euros, and plenty of other sport like Wimbledon, would make any FTA interest minimal IMO. And, either way, it would be hard for anyone to drum up much interest in Seattle Sounders v. Chelsea at 1am on a Tuesday night in July.
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Four of the five English clubs in Europe this week were eliminated, with only Aston Villa surviving to the semi-finals. This has all but guaranteed that only four English teams will be in the Champions League next season, with it now looking unlikely Tottenham or Manchester United would qualify for the main competition (England had over 85% chance of acheiving the bonus place before last week incidentally). Results from last week also means Scotland will lose its automatic place in the UCL league phase for 2025/26.
twitter.com
Also a bad week for the bosses at FIFA. The new Club World Cup's European qualifiers have been confirmed. Barcleona will miss out, but FC Salzburg do qualify! The two English entrants will be Manchester City and Chelsea, so another blow with the biggest draws in Liverpool and Manchester United not qualifying.
I wonder how much interest this will get from broadcasters. It will be post-season, so a quiet time for Sky and TNT on the football front, so likely one of them will pick it up if the price is right. It will reportedly be on the East coast of the US to be more suitable for European broadcasters. A week's overlap with the Women's Euros, and plenty of other sport like Wimbledon, would make any FTA interest minimal IMO. And, either way, it would be hard for anyone to drum up much interest in Seattle Sounders v. Chelsea at 1am on a Tuesday night in July.
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