England World Cup qualifier goes live online
Updated on 05 October 2009
This weekend's World Cup qualifying match between England and Ukraine will be broadcast exclusively live over the internet for the first time.
Media group Perform is to stream Saturday's away clash on a pay-per-view basis following the collapse of pay-TV platform Setanta earlier this year, which had been due to broadcast the World Cup qualifier.
International football agency Kentaro had sold the broadcast rights of the fixture to Setanta. After Setanta collapsed, Kentaro failed to agree rights offers with traditional broadcasters such as BBC, ITV and Five.
Perform's executive chairman, Andrew Croker said: "The world is changing... this is a classic example of it.
"It's exciting. Anyone who wants to come on a journey with us should sign up - they will enjoy it."
The cost of watching the game was being advertised today on one national newspaper as £4.99, if viewers "signed up early".
Perform said it streams more than 15,000 events a year, with millions of site users a month.
England have already qualified for the 2010 World Cup, winning all eight of their group matches.
Samira Ahmed asks Peter Silverstone, managing director of Kentaro - which owns the rights to the game, about the decision to broadcast the match online.
"We had discussions with all major UK broadcasters as well as going down the Perform route and ukrainevengland.com has given us the most viable option.
"It will allow the majority of the UK public to watch the match.
"We are all watching content online everyday. Andy Murray vs Roddick was watched by around 2m people online.
"So you can't say that people are not watching content online, this just happens to be the first time that it is an England game."
Channel 4 News' technology correspondent Ben Cohen writes:
"Imagine watching England's 1966 world cup match live via the internet.
"They think it's all over, but it really is because your internet connection has slowed down and you've missed England's most important goal.
"Access remains the biggest obstacle to bradband becoming a regular channel for sport.
"If this week's match is a success industry insiders told Channel4 News even individual football clubs might start their own pay tv operations.
"Perhaps challenging the near monopoloy that Sky has over sports."
