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Football fans will have to watch England vs. Ukraine online

England’s World Cup qualifier against Ukraine tomorrow (Saturday) is to be broadcast over the Internet as a pay per view event, rather than shown on TV.

The move to broadcast over the Internet came about after sports broadcaster Setanta lost rights to the game following its demise – the broadcaster went into administration in June 2009.  Perform is the company responsible for streaming the match over the Internet, who are digital media specialists in sports and entertainment.

The match can be watched by signing up at www.ukrainevengland.com at a cost of £9.99, or £11.99 on match day.  It is possible to watch it free, but that involves opening a betting account with Bet365.com.  The move has already disgruntled many football fans, and many would prefer to watch the match on TV.  The England U21 coach Stuart Pearce also weighed in saying that all England games should be televised in a statement to the Telegraph.

Users will obviously need a decent broadband connection to watch online.  It’s not just about the advertised maximum speed of their service, it’s also whether it can handle what is theoretically like downloading a file for almost 2 hours, at a consistent speed.  Those who already watch videos, streaming clips and use applications like the iPlayer successfully, will probably be OK.  However, it also needs the company providing the streaming content to be able to handle the large number of users demanding the content. 

It’s not known how many users have already signed-up for the event, but Perform has indicated that it is going well.  It is also possible to watch the game through various other online websites including the Telegraph and the Daily Star.  It will be interesting to get the reactions of those who watch tomorrow’s event online as its success, or failure may give an insight into the feasibility of broadcasting such events over the Internet regularly.

For those who don’t want to, or can’t watch it over the Internet, unfortunately no deal was struck to make it available on TV as broadcasters were not willing to pay the amount asked for the event.