ITV, the UK commercial broadcaster, has acquired rights to show the inaugural Arnold Clark Cup, the women’s invitational soccer tournament.
The host broadcaster will present full live coverage of the four-team competition, which features England Women and takes place on their home turf.
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The tournament will also include Germany, Spain, and Canada and will see all four teams face each other once in a round-robin format.
It begins on February 17 with Germany taking on Spain in the opening game, followed by England vs. Canada.
The competition concludes on February 23, with games to be played at Middlesbrough’s Riverside Stadium, Norwich City’s Carrow Road, and Wolverhampton Wanderers’ Molineux.
All six matches will be shown across the main ITV channel, ITV4, and the ITV Hub streaming platform.
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By GlobalDataThe deal with ITV was brokered by Pitch International, the sports marketing agency which created the tournament, and has an agreement with the English Football Association (FA) through to 2025 to manage all aspects of the competition.
As well as ITV, the agency has secured deals with several international broadcasters and claims the Arnold Clark Cup will reach more than 100 million households worldwide.
Global broadcast partners include TSN (Canada), RTVE (Spain), ARD and ZDF (Germany), CBS (USA), ESPN (Central and South America), and Charlton (Israel).
Pitch revealed more deals are “expected to be confirmed in the coming days and weeks”.
UK car retailer Arnold Clark was unveiled as title sponsor of the tournament in a multi-year deal in December 2021.
ITV already holds rights to England Women’s matches in a four-year deal signed last September.
It is also the broadcast home of matches for the men’s England side.
ITV’s soccer portfolio additionally features the FA Cup, the prestigious knockout cup competition.
Cat Watson, director of women’s sport at Pitch International, said: “The level of interest from broadcasters across the globe has been incredibly encouraging and shows that it’s not just fans from the participating nations who are eager to watch the action.
“With the UEFA Women’s Euros around the corner it’s a big year for international women’s football in England and the Arnold Clark Cup is the perfect way to kick things off.”
The Arnold Clark Cup is modeled on the SheBelieves Cup, the annual four-team women’s invitational tournament held in the US that was launched in 2016.
The respective tournaments will take place at the same time this year.
