ENGLAND'S Home Union rivals may be forced to sign their own separate deals with BSkyB after Twickenham's announcement yesterday that they would go it alone with a five year deal with the satellite company worth £87.5 million, an agreement that puts the future of the Five Nations Championship in jeopardy.
The deal runs from the beginning of the 1997-8 season and is for exclusive television rights to all international representative and club games in England. The deal allows terrestrial television, almost certainly the BBC, whose present three year £27 million agreement runs out at the end of next season, to broadcast Five Nations' matches not less than two hours after the end of the live game.
The games in England in the 1999 World Cup could be the last terrestrial television matches viewers are able to see live in England, ITV having a separate deal for the competition, which is also being hosted by Wales.
Twickenham's unilateral stance has angered Wales, Scotland and Ireland, who still have the chance to negotiate their own separate deals with BSkyB. But Wales have been offered £40 million and Scotland and Ireland £18 million each by the satellite company, which only last week agreed a £743 million deal for Premiership soccer and has recently begun an £87 million deal for five years of Super League rugby league.
The row does not involve France, who have always negotiated their own Five Nations deal with television channels in their own country. France's present agreement runs until 1999 and they, therefore, could not be part of the present negotiation.
Ireland, Wales and Scotland will ask the BBC to adapt future Five Nations tournaments to exclude England, but the corporation is unlikely to want deals with the Celtic countries that cold shoulder England.
David Elstein, BSkyB's head of programming, said: "We have made an offer to the other unions and they can sell the rights of their home matches. The offers we have made are proportionate. The other unions have a tremendous asset to sell; they should now pick up the baton and run with it."
Elstein said that pay for view matches were not part of the new deal and that system was not discussed in the negotiation.
The RFU argues that it had to act in a unilateral way to help, fund the professional game and it also has to pay off an outstanding loan of £34 million for the development of Twickenham And according to RFU secretary Hallet, far from wanting to destroy the Five Nations we're desperately keen to stay in it".
Hallett denied the deal would lead to the "listing" of the competition, leading to the British, government protecting it as in the case of major sports events like Wimbledon, the Grand National and the FA Cup which are still the preserve of terrestrial channels.
But there will be widespread anger at the deal in England as well as in the rest of Britain. The Five Nations Championship has been the shop window of the game for 30 years.
