13.05.05 -- Infront Sports & Media has agreed a significant broadcast rights deal with Italy's Sky Italia — part of the News Corporation — , covering a number of FIFA events, including next year's FIFA World Cup™ in Germany.

 Zug, Switzerland, 13 May 2005 -- Infront Sports & Media has agreed a significant broadcast rights deal with Italy's Sky Italia — part of the News Corporation — , covering a number of FIFA events, including next year's FIFA World Cup™ in Germany.
 
The key aspect of this series of agreements is the exclusive pay-television deal for all 64 matches of the FIFA World Cup™ across the territory of Italy and in the Italian language. Of these matches, Sky will have the right to broadcast 39 matches exclusively live on pay television.
 
Sky's FIFA World Cup™ rights package includes the Final Draw for the 2006 FIFA World Cup™, which takes place on 9th December 2005 in Leipzig, Germany. It has also purchased the exclusive rights to the Official Preview Series of the 2006 FIFA World Cup™ for Italy, which is being produced by Infront Sports & Media in association with FIFA (16 x 26-minute programmes) and the exclusive rights to the Official Film Collection, which forms part of the FIFA Archive.
 
In addition, Sky Italia acquired two prestigious FIFA events including the FIFA Confederations Cup 2005, which kicks off in Germany this June and is an important event in its own right, as well as a dress rehearsal for the HDTV television coverage of the 2006 FIFA World Cup™ a year later. The second FIFA event covers the 2005 FIFA World Youth Championship, where Sky will be entitled to show all matches in Italy. This event will take place in the Netherlands from 10th June – 2nd July and Italy is one of the teams that have qualified for the event.
 
"This is an extremely important deal — one of the final pieces in the jigsaw for Europe — and it will substantially increase the dimension of World Cup exposure in Italy," said Oliver Seibert, an Executive Director of Infront. "The shape of the deal that we have done illustrates how the open-market approach increases choice for the viewer."
 
This is the second major agreement for Italy, one of the most important football markets in Europe. Italy's national broadcaster, RAI, has the right to show one match a day on Free-TV (25 matches in total), through an agreement signed in 2001.
 
For further information, please contact:
John Kristick
Infront Sports & Media AG
Tel. +41-41-723 15 15
Fax. +41-41-723-1516
info@infrontsports.com