Premier League mulls pan-European TV rights deal

The English Premier League is considering selling its television rights on a pan-European basis to prevent domestic fans from being able to pay for cheaper continental channels.

Chief executive Richards Scudamore confirmed the plan on Tuesday that would help protect the rights to the world's richest football league throughout Europe's lucrative market of more than 500 million people.

It comes after the European Union's highest court ruled that rights-holders shouldn't be allowed to set up exclusive contracts for each EU nation and then seek to prohibit viewers from watching those games in another nation with a cheaper decoder card.

But Scudamore accepts that selling the rights to one European network wouldn't ``be good for the local indigenous broadcast partner."

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