By Saeed Shah in the Independent
The League was reacting to comment from the European Commission, which suggested that the sports body was trying to wriggle out of a commitment to break up the monopoly enjoyed by BSkyB over broadcasting live top-flight English football.
The next three-year package on offer will run from the 2007-2008 season. Last time Sky paid £340m a year, or more than £1bn over three years for all the rights. The broadcaster declined to comment on the latest developments yesterday but an industry source said: "If Sky loses exclusivity, the clubs will lose millions of pounds, maybe hundreds of millions of pounds."
Sky has used exclusive football rights as a major draw to subscribers. The Commission was furious that Sky got all the packages on offer last time - the auction was split into main bundles of games in an attempt to create competition for the rights but in the event Sky simply bid high for each of the packages and won them all.
This time