FA foiled in bid for England TV rights

The Football Association has been told it is fighting a losing battle in its bid for more control of television rights for England away games.

European football's governing body, Uefa, warned that change could jeopardise the finances of smaller countries reliant on TV revenues from hosting teams like England. The FA, as in all other countries, controls the rights for its national team's home qualifiers for major international tournaments.

Its policy is to ensure these are shown live on a terrestrial channel – the BBC is the current partners – as well as a satellite station such as BSkyB.

However, Sky Sports has now bought the rights to the final Euro 2004 qualifier against Turkey in October next year from the Turkish FA. The FA wants to avoid a repeat of the 2000 World Cup qualifier against Finland when the now-defunct pay-per-view channel U-direct broadcasted to a tiny audience.

Paul Barber, the FA's director of marketing and communications, said: "We feel we should have more control because we want as many fans as possible to see these games. At the moment the host country has all the power and decides who gets the rights. It is an issue we need to address with Uefa and Fifa."

Uefa seems likely to stand in their way, stressing that the FA benefits at present as it is in sole charge of selling rights for England home games.

A Uefa spokesman, Mike Lee, said: "The position is clear – the home associations negotiate television rights for matches."