But first we have some new information from ITV themselves, which for the sake of fairness must be shared.

It coems from Stuart, who talked to a woman at ITV on the phone at some lenght and managed to get some explanations from them which we've not seen anywhere else. Many thanks to S for taking the time to type this up...

"Last year ITV1 had a contract with UEFA for Wednesday nights only, but did apply for a Tuesday night for two games which they got. This year UEFA have only given them Tuedays, this apparently has nothing to do with Corrie Street viewers complaining - to be fair she seemed very sincere about that and said while there were a few complaints most were happy to wait until after the game to watch it....."

"Next problem was that 4 teams qualified, if it had been 3 we could have had Tuesdays with ITV1 and ITV2 and Wednesdays with ITV2 only - I knew I'd end up blaming ManU for something when they qualified...!"

"Next - SKY turned down the chance to have the ITN News (football special) Channel via their service. This means that while Sky subscribers can have ITN News for 22 hours tomorrow, when the footy comes on the signal changes to cable only and nothing can be seen."

"Next problem specifically for Gooners, is that Arsenal, to their credit, saw the problem early and applied for a beamback to Highbury. The council refused cos it wanted 28 days notice. This seems ridiculous as it would be home fans only and need no policing really."

"Next problem, the package for commercial and residental cable packages is different and the commercial one doesn't include the footy. Some Sports Bars will be trying to 'pay the difference' to have it on."

Pay particular attention to that last paragraph. It means that the fact that a pub has cable does not mean they have the channel. We recommend that no-one goes to any pub expecting to see the game without checking with that pub first!