All England matches will be broadcast free-to-air by Channel 4 until 2024.
The new agreement means six England UEFA Nations League matches will be shown live on Channel 4 this year including clashes with Germany and current UEFA European Champions Italy.
Next year the broadcaster will cover England’s European Qualifier matches.
It’s the first time that England UEFA Nations League games will be on free to air television. In total Channel 4 will broadcast 20 live England matches between 2022 to 2024.
Channel 4’s Chief Content Officer Ian Katz said: “After bringing some of the biggest sporting moments of last year to the nation, I’m delighted that Channel 4 will be airing so many mouth-watering England matches on free to air television.
“This deal shows Channel 4 can compete for some of the biggest properties in sport and will bring substantial new audiences to our award-winning slate of original programming.”
The matches complete a redrawing of the rights map for national football. On Wednesday, Viaplay announced it has secured the rights to Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish national team football in UK for its entrance to the UK market.
Like the British nations, the Nations League games are a loss to Sky Sports, but also to ITV which previously screened England’s qualifiers.
Channel 4 has increasingly been turning to sport with the British & Irish Lions; England’s Test tour of India; Ireland rugby union internationals; and the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games which attracted 20 million viewers. More recently the broadcaster aired more than 80 hours coverage of the Beijing 2022 Winter Paralympic Game and struck deals to show live Betfred Super League rugby and Formula E.
This year’s World Cup finals in Qatar will remain on BBC and ITV.
