Spain’s Movistar TV wins exclusive football rights

Spain’s Movistar TV has secured exclusive rights to Euro 2016 and the 2018 World Cup qualifying matches over the next four years.

UEFA has awarded Telefónica-owned IPTV service provider Movistar TV the exclusive rights to qualifying matches for the Euro 2016 competition in France, as well as rights to qualifying matches of European teams for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.

From September, Movistar TV will air the matches on a new dedicated international football channel.

The qualifying matches for European teams will join the main club competitions that were already offered on Movistar TV, such as the Liga BBVA, the Champions League and the Europa League.

Movistar TV already offers two theme channels dedicated to sports, Movistar MotoGP and Movistar F1, where motor racing fans can enjoy more than 30 hours of live broadcasts from each Grand Prix and six HD channels to choose from during each race.

Separately, UEFA has awarded the French rights to the Europa League football tournament for the 2015-18 seasons to the existing rightsholders BeIN Sports and M6 Group.

M6-owned digital channel W9 will have the first choice of matches on each competition day from the group stages to the final, with a total of 15 matches to be viewed live an unencrypted.

Al Jazeera-owned BeIN Sports will hold rights to show all competition matches – 205 in total including the rights to co-broadcast the matches aired by W9.

W9 will also continue to air its 100% Foot magazine programme with post-match highlights from each day’s matches.