ITV, the UK free-to-air (FTA) commercial broadcaster, has snapped up eleventh-hour short-term rights to a group of national team soccer fixtures later this month featuring Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The FTA network will cover four games in total - two featuring Scotland and the other duo involving Northern Ireland - from the 2024-25 edition of the UEFA Nations League pan-European competition.
The rights have been acquired through a last-minute deal with embattled broadcaster Viaplay, which was forced to withdraw from the UK market earlier this year. Viaplay had initially acquired rights to Nations League games across the UK (excluding England fixtures in that specific country), in April 2022.
ITV will cover Scotland vs Poland tomorrow and Portugal vs Scotland on Sunday. Northern Ireland’s fixtures are against Luxembourg and Bulgaria on the same dates.
The games will be covered live by the ITV3 (Scotland) and ITV4 (Northern Ireland) second-tier linear channels, and the ITVX streaming service.
This will come as welcome news to fans of both national sides, who would without this deal have been unable to watch the games - while there had been reports earlier this week that the public-service BBC was set to step in and take the Scotland games, this has not transpired.
Viaplay has been forced to withdraw from a number of its non-core expansion markets - and, therefore, sell on the sports rights it had picked up - following severe financial difficulties in 2023.
These markets include the UK (where it had acquired Premier Sports in 2022), the US, the Baltic countries, and others outside its key Nordic territories. Indeed, earlier this year UEFA was forced to conduct a second tender process for the remainder of its 2022-28 national teams cycle in the Baltics after Viaplay (which had originally bought the rights) announced its intention to exit those three countries by mid-2025.
ITV, meanwhile, will add these games to its coverage of England’s Nations League fixtures through 2028, a deal (also including qualifying games for major tournaments and friendlies) that was unveiled last year.
The commercial FTA broadcaster’s soccer portfolio also includes domestic action from England’s iconic FA Cup, and highlights from the second-tier English Football League.
Following these September fixtures, the remaining four Nations League games for Scotland and Northern Ireland are split evenly across October and November and are yet to be allocated.
Scotland are in League A, Group 1, of the UEFA competition, while Northern Ireland are in League C, Group 3.
