After the fine to Sky, which has reduced the offer in Italy due to the landing of Dazn,Antitrust get back to dealing with TV rights for football matches. This time in the Authority's sights, the tenders for the assignment of awards are over international rights, i.e. the ability to transmit outside Italy the Championships of Series A and B, Coppa Italia , Supercoppa Italiana.
According to the Antitrust investigations, also based on some documents from the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office, since 2008 these races have been tainted by a secret and illegal agreement between three companies – MP Silva, IMG and B4 Capital – who shared the cake in violation of competition rules.
Basically, the three operators did not autonomously formulate their own economic offers for TV rights, but they agreed in order to reduce the cost to a minimum. The most classic of cartels, sanctioned by the Antitrust with a fine of 67 million euros total.
The press release from the Authority states that the three companies "coordinated their behavior and, following the assignment, divided the revenues deriving from the subsequent resale abroad of the TV Rights for the competitions organized by the League".
The victim in this story is not alone the Football League, which banned competitions, but the entire Italian football movement, because all teams of the Serie A and B championships collect a portion of the revenues produced by the sale of international rights.
The Antitrust underlines that “the last round of competitions, started after the intervention of the Authority, recorded an increase in value".
