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Looks like I may have spoken too soon. I've been told that Sky have trailed the home leg as being on one of the 3 main channels.
It's still not on their web site, but I'll let you know as
soon as I have confirmation.
It was with some surprise that I heard the news that Sky had announced that both legs of our semi-final against Lens would
be shown on their digital service only. Although I've still seen
no direct evidence for this, it did (and does) appear to be confirmed by
Sky's (usually accurate) page of forthcoming
live games.
So I announced it on newsreel
last Friday,
and I've heard nothing to the contrary since. Usually errors are spotted quickly by Arseweb's eagle-eyed (and sometimes picky ;->) readers.
It seemed strange, and wrong. But it's taken one of the those
eagle-eyed readers, Paul Murray, to write and remind me of the source of these misgivings.
Paul had a shufty at this newsreel item from 11th November last year, reporting the deal which gave Sky rights to
our UEFA Cup campaign. And he followed the link to the AFCi page
on the subject, which is still there. You can see it by following
this link (and just in case it mysteriously disappears, I've
reproduced the text below).
The AFCi (that's the official Arsenal web site) page clearly
states that the deal between Sky and Arsenal included all
UEFA Cup matches at Highbury being covered on Sky Sports 1, 2, or 3
in other words, not only on digital. All matches at Highbury. That quite clearly includes the semi-final.
If Paul and I are reading this wrong then we can only apologise.
But let's face it, we're not, are we?
If there's just been a misunderstanding, and Sky just haven't
decided which of those 3 channels to show it on yet (they don't
usually hang about do they?), then I apologise for
stirring things up and look forward to being able to announce
the channel that non-digital Sky subscribers can watch the match on.
In the meantime, it looks very much like someone has broken a promise. Sky's to Arsenal? Arsenal's to the fans? It's the early hours of Monday morning right now or I'd give them a ring right now. Instead it'll have to wait till sometime tomorrow. We'll
let you know as soon as there's any news. Please let me know if you happen to hear anything.
Full text of AFCi page http://www.arsenal.co.uk/content/sky_deal.htm, as copied at
01:30 on Monday 27th March 2000:
SKY to cover Gunners UEFA campaign
Subject to progression in the tournament, all of
Arsenal's home matches in The UEFA Cup up to
and including the Semi-Final stage of the
competition will be covered by Sky Sports.
Arsenal's 3rd round 2nd leg game away at
Nantes on Thursday December 9th is also
covered live by SKY.
In addition, Arsenal can confirm that the Club
has negotiated that all of the matches at
Highbury in The UEFA Cup will be covered by one of Sky Sports' main three
channels and on Sky Digital. This is to ensure that all Arsenal supporters
who subscribed to OnDigital to follow our UEFA Champions League
progress, will be able to watch Arsenal participate in The UEFA Cup.
© Arsenal Football Club Plc, 1999
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