Premier League chief Richard Masters says they are ‘taking steps’ to get coverage back on Chinese TV after pulling the plug on £564m deal with PPTV last week over withheld £160m payment amid coronavirus crisis

• Premier League terminated its existing contract with PPTV in China last week
• It came after the withholding of a payment due under terms of the deal in March
• The three-year £564m deal with PPTV was announced last summer

The Premier League is ‘taking steps’ to get its teams back on Chinese television, the organisation’s chief executive Richard Masters has said.

The league terminated its existing contract in the country with rights holder PPTV, owned by Suning, last week after the withholding of a payment due under the terms of the deal in March.

The three-year deal with PPTV was announced last summer, and was reported to have been worth more than half a billion pounds.

The Premier League is ‘taking steps’ to get its teams back on Chinese television 

Masters said he hoped it would not be long before Chinese fans of the Premier League would be able to watch the action again.

‘The decision to terminate our agreement with Suning was a very difficult one and they had been a very good partner to us,’ he said.

‘We had some difficulties that we couldn’t resolve and we had to make the decision to move on. We know there are millions of fans in China who want to watch the Premier League so we are taking steps to resolve that situation.

‘We need to make the right decision rather than the quickest decision, so we are getting on to that.

The Premier League last weel pulled its hugely lucrative TV deal with Chinese broadcasters

The Premier League are hopeful Chinese fans will be able to watch the action again soon

‘Clearly it creates some financial issues but we are confident that we made the right commercial decision and the right strategic decision for the Premier League.’

Masters also said it was unlikely that the pre-season Asia Trophy would be taking place next summer.

‘Having been centrally involved in organising previous Asia Trophies, it is an enormous undertaking and to make it happen, it requires an enormous amount of forward planning which we just haven’t been able to get done,’ he said.

‘We have been to China twice and Hong Kong on a number of occasions and had really positive experiences and I really hope we would be welcomed if we are ready to go back with whatever pre-season format we have in the future.’

Share this article

Source: Read Full Article