Setanta to go into administration?

An administrator (probably Deloitte) is expected to be appointed to sports broadcaster Setanta as early as Monday after talks with a white knight investor broke down and the company failed to stump up a £10m payment due to the English Premier League. Setanta strongly denied reports in the UK last night that their talks with US billionaire Len Blavatnik had collapsed due to significant tax liabilities, both in the UK and in Luxembourg.

Setanta employs 200 people in Ireland and the ownership structure here is different to the UK. It is 20% owned by promoter Denis Desmond while the remaining 80% of the company is owned by the parent firm Setanta Sports Holdings Limited. Unlike the parent group, the Irish company made a small profit last year.

Setanta boasts around 1.2 million subscribers — but that is still short of the reported 1.9 million it needs to break even and customer numbers have been hit by the recession. The Premier League will now go ahead and market the three-year rights which Setanta had to 46 UK Live Matches per season from the 2009/2010 season. While BSkyB can purchase some of the matches it cannot buy them all thanks to EU law. ESPN, the sports cable channel owned by Walt Disney, confirmed yesterday it is sitting in the sidelines and will take up the rights if "it makes business sense" in a move that would pitch it against BSkyB. It is understood that Britain's leading football clubs could lose at least €30m if Setanta fails and the League is forced to sell on the 46 games.