Sky Italia seeks EU ruling on Italy soccer rights

By Jo Winterbottom and David Lawsky

MILAN/LONDON, March 14 (Reuters) - Satellite broadcaster Sky Italia, owned by media magnate Rupert Murdoch, has called on the European Union to intervene over Italy's plans to change the way the $1 billion soccer rights market is operated.

"Sky believes there are a number of infringements of competition law ... the size of the market clearly passes the threshold," a source close to the issue said.

A spokeswoman for the European Commission said that it had received a copy of the complaint.

No-one was immediately available to comment at the Italian Communications Ministry.

Italy's government introduced the changes, which effectively move the sale of rights to collective bargaining for the 2010-11 season, at the start of this year.

It has since called an election in April which opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi, owner of Italy's biggest private broadcaster Mediaset (MS.MI) and of Serie A soccer club AC Milan, is currently poll favourite to win.

The outgoing government's changes will give Lega Calcio, Italy's soccer league, control over selling broadcasting rights on behalf of all clubs in the 700 million euros ($1.09 billion) market and will ban any sublicensing.

In addition, they will put secondary rights -- to production, for example -- with individual clubs, which could mean companies win broadcast rights but then have to negotiate the rights to place cameras at the club's stadium.

Currently, individual clubs negotiate separately for all rights to their games with buyers including Mediaset, which dominates free-to-air programming with state broadcaster Rai, and Telecom Italia (TLIT.MI), which owns La7 and MTV Italia.

Sky Italia can bid for satellite rights only, because of conditions imposed over its creation in 2003, so if the Lega Calcio decides to sell rights as a complete package, the satellite broadcaster would be shut out.

Sky Italia has around 4.4 million customers and 3 million of these subscribe to soccer programming.

MORE HEADACHES?

In addition to concerns over the outgoing government's changes, Sky Italia could face even bigger headaches if Berlusconi wins the election.

"It is one of the further complexities of Sky Italia's situation," the source said. "Sky could face a situation where the prime minister is the head of Mediaset and of AC Milan ... they may be able to create the rules they know will give them an advantage," the source added.

News Corp NWSa.N, the owner of Sky Italia, has seen the problem from both sides.

BSkyB, a British satellite company owned by News Corp, long held exclusive broadcast rights to the English Premier League, which includes teams such as Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool.

In 2006 the European Commission reached an agreement requiring the Premier League to open soccer rights to television, mobile phones and the Internet through open and competitive bidding. At least two broadcasters had to win significant rights.

Unlike the case in Italy, the national government had not been involved in the allocation of rights. (Editing by Mike Elliott)