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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Sport
Ben Hayward

La Liga on TV in UK and Ireland: Will a deal be reached before Barcelona face Real Madrid?

Fans of La Liga in UK and Ireland will be able to watch the competition for the first three weeks, but there is still no deal in place to broadcast the competition for the remainder of the season.

ITV4 announced last week that they had reached an agreement to screen a match for each of the opening three rounds of La Liga, starting with Athletic Club's 1-0 win over Barcelona at San Mames last Friday.

Next up, ITV4 will show Barca's home game against Betis on Sunday, before screening Real Madrid's trip to Villarreal in the third round of matches on September 1.

There is also a weekly highlights show for those first three weeks, but what will happen after that is less clear.

The ITV4 agreement was confirmed just one day before the start of the season, with no buyer coming forward when the rights originally went up for auction in July.

Last season, La Liga was initially shown exclusively on Eleven Sports in the UK and Ireland, but rights were renegotiated late in the campaign and coverage also available on Premier Sports and ITV4.

Standard Sport understands streaming service Eleven Sports remain interested and are waiting to see what will happen after the current agreement ends, while ITV4 could look to extend their arrangement of showing one game per week.

Aficionados of Spanish football in the UK and Ireland will hope a deal can be reached sooner rather than later, with a number of big games on the horizon including the Clasico clash between Barcelona and Real Madrid at Camp Nou on October 27.

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