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We recently asked for guest writers to provide their views on current football topics and in this article David Holliday presents an argument that many of us will be in agreement with. Is this the worst thing to happen to T.V ever? No matter if England were playing bad teams or teams no one has ever heard of, the nation could still join together and watch the nation’s heroes gracing our beautiful new stadium. This has now ended thanks to the sports station Setanta Sports. They arrived on the scene last year and have now bought up nearly half the live Premiership games and more importantly all the England away Qualifiers. Typically over half the population tune into England’s 3-2 defeat to Croatia, but only 1.5 million people was able to see Theo Walcott’s Hat-trick against the Croats in the recent victory. England fans don't see much glory, and thanks to Setanta, that night was no exception. After rival channels, such as the BBC and ITV refused to pay £1 million to broadcast highlights, Setanta reluctantly announced before kick-off that some choice moments would be available on Freeview well after bedtime. It seems like Fabio Capello's brilliant new strategy is not to let anyone watch. This is not the first time a nation has missed a great sporting achievements. In 1980 the whole country missed Graham Gooch’s 300 against India because the BBC had ended its coverage early to show the early runners at the 4:05 at Ascott. At the 2006 Olympics, boxing fans all missed Amir Khan’s brilliant fight back against Willie Limond. He had just been knocked to the ground when ITV cut to an advert break fearing the worst. In the next four minutes Khan got up and forced his opponent to retire in the 8th round. At Euro 2008 the Germany v Turkey match was interrupted by a freak storm in Vienna which downed all T.V coverage in the area. The 17 minute interruption was enough time for Miroslav Klose to equalize for Germany. Anyone watching that game missed the turning goal in the match as Germany went on to win 3-2.  The current list of sporting events open to the British public currently includes: the 6nations, the Olympics, Wimbledon, the World Cups (rugby and football), the FA cup final and the British open. The sort of sports not free to the British public are: International Cricket, the Champions League and unfortunately now England’s away qualifiers. So should we stand for this? Why should we be unable to watch England just so an Irish T.V company can earn a couple of extra thousand pounds a year? Even Gordon Brown has realized how unhappy the nation is. He said: 'It is perhaps a little unfortunate that large numbers of people were not able to see the match live and that is something that I think a lot of supporters will want to have answers to.' Let’s hope someone can sort it out, soon. By David Holliday. TF90M: Thanks to David for this great article. As mentioned previously we welcome everyone's views and appreciate any articles that you have written yourself. Just send them to
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