The Italian competition authority has issued €66 million in fines to the Italian football league and its broadcast partners Mediaset and Sky.
By far the biggest fine went to Mediaset; its Premium TV business was fined €51.4 million, sports rights brokers Infront €9 million, Sky €4 million and the league itself €2 million.
The Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato said that in June 2014 the league had backed an Infront brokered deal that had frozen other broadcasts out of the process. Broadcasters including Eurosport had been frozen out of Package D.
Rather than awarding the rights on the basis it had promoted, the league had at the suggestion of Infront, implemented an agreed allocation between two main competitors.
The authority said the practice was in breach of both European and national laws.
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