The Spanish soccer team travels to Minsk this week for a World Cup 2014 qualifier against Belarus, but it seems highly unlikely that anyone in Spain will be able to watch Friday’s game as no Spanish television broadcaster had reached an agreement to pay the €1.5 million for the broadcast rights to the match.
According to newspaper AS, the company that owns the rights to Spain’s World Cup qualifying matches, Sportfive, was originally asking €3 million for the broadcasting rights for each individual game featuring the current world and European champions.
There was little enthusiasm to fork out such an amount so Sportfive reduced its asking price by half for the match in Minsk. However, this has still not tempted any channel to purchase the rights to the entire qualifying campaign. The deadline for purchasing the rights to the Belarus game expires today, Wednesday,