ITV are reportedly poised to bring Champions League football back to terrestrial TV.
UEFA is set to hold its auction of British broadcast rights and, according to a report in The Times , ITV and Sky "are prepared to launch a serious challenge" against BT Sport after the European governing body sent out the tender for 2021 to 2024.
Both ITV and Sky shared the TV rights to the European tournament until 2015 when BT came in with a huge bid but the result has been a lower public exposer for the competition.
The deadline for submission of bids is November 11, 2019.
The Times report states: "The tender document has split the rights up into several different packages, and broadcasters can even bid for a dedicated package to just show the Champions League final. There is also a slight alteration in the time that matches in the early slot will kick off, changing from 5.55pm to 5.45pm.
"If ITV is to be successful, it would probably do something similar to the past with a package of one or two live matches on either a Tuesday or Wednesday, with a pay-TV broadcaster having the rights to all the other games."
The Champions League final, which was won by Liverpool last season in Madrid, has to be shown for free due to it being a listed event covered by government legislation.
Uefa’s tender document also shows that bids for rights to the Europa League would also include the rights for its new third-tier tournament the Europa Conference League.
There will be one English representative in the Europa Conference — the winner of next season’s Carabao Cup.
