The Russian state broadcaster VGTRK has been given the right to transmit a certain number of football matches from the country’s Premier League.
According to Lenta, this follows a high-powered meeting between Prime Minister Putin; Vitaly Mutko, the minister of sport, tourism and youth policy; Oleg Dobrodeyev, the head of VGTRK; Sergei Fursenko, the president of the Russian Football Union, and Alexei Miller, the CEO of Gazprom.
The rights to the Premier League were secured by the DTH platform NTV-Plus, which is controlled by Gazprom-Media, for a four-year period in 2007. They were subsequently sub-licensed to Channel One and the former Sport, now known as Rossiya-2.
Under the terms of the agreement reached between all parties, VGTRK will have the right to show one match from each round of the Premier League. It will be shown FTA, though it is as yet unclear as to on which VGTRK channel.
Prime Minister Putin has promised to help find additional funds for VGTRK to purchase the rights.
