THE Old Firm have suffered collateral damage this week from Setanta's official fall into administration.
As the Setanta Sports channels went off the air on Tuesday evening, so too did Celtic TV and Rangers TV. The dedicated Old Firm club channels, which were produced and presented by Setanta staff in Glasgow and provided as part of the Irish company's
subscription package, have now ceased broadcasting.
Both channels provided full delayed coverage of every match the clubs played, along with daily news programmes, archive match footage and documentary style features.
It is understood Setanta paid the Old Firm an annual royalty fee in return for including the channels in their package.
Both clubs are keen to see the channels continue next season and will hope to strike a similar agreement with whoever emerges as the new broadcasting partner for the SPL.
"This is very disappointing news for the Celtic TV service and its staff," said a Celtic spokesman. "The channel has steadily built up a faithful subscription base and has become more and more popular with supporters.
"While clearly, we cannot make any guarantees, we hope that in the future there may be further opportunities to re-instate a club channel under any new rights holder and this is something which we will be investigating."
Rangers made no comment but are understood to hold the same view as Celtic. For both clubs, however, the immediate priority is to see a new television deal struck for the whole SPL.
SPL executive chairman Lex Gold announced on Monday that they would be selling their broadcasting rights after Setanta failed at the third time of asking to make their outstanding payment of £3million, the day before the Ireland-based company went in to administration.
Gold is under pressure to find a new broadcaster before the SPL season starts on 15 August.
Sky TV, who lost out in the last round of bidding, and American broadcaster ESPN, are said to be interested and the SPL expect some development in negotiations by the end of the week.
But amid fears that clubs will lose out on much-needed cash, possible kick-off times under any new broadcasting partner have all but been ignored, and it will be fans of both Rangers and Celtic who will be affected most, given their clubs feature in the vast majority of the live games.
Setanta showed SPL games at 12.30pm on a Saturday and 2pm on a Sunday but, under a previous contract, Sky screened games on a Sunday at 6.05pm.
David Edgar, from the Rangers Supporters Trust, said fans have been let down once more and will not take kindly to being messed around again over kick-off times next season.
"Whoever takes the SPL games on, it is likely that we will be a side-salad for the English Premier League games, and if the broadcaster wants to show the games on a Thursday night or a Sunday morning, then do they expect us to believe that is not going to happen?" said Edgar. "The only people to lose out will be the fans and we are sick of it. Once again we are the last people to be considered."
Peter Rafferty, from the Association of Celtic Supporters' Clubs, said: "Football must be the only business in the world which does not consult with the people who support it. I can't think of any other industry that does that. The paying customers have to be considered."
