{"id":328649,"date":"2025-12-03T20:30:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T20:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/328649\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T20:30:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T20:30:08","slug":"tv-rights-for-new-womens-champions-cup-remain-unsold-in-blow-to-fifa-womens-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/328649\/","title":{"rendered":"TV rights for new Women\u2019s Champions Cup remain unsold in blow to Fifa | Women&#8217;s football"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Fifa has been unable to sell TV rights to its first global women\u2019s club competition, the Champions Cup to take place in London from 28 January. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2025\/may\/24\/arsenal-grab-womens-champions-league-final-glory-against-barcelona\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Champions League holders, Arsenal<\/a>, will represent Europe in the competition that features the winners of the continental championships.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The situation has echoes of Fifa\u2019s struggle to sell broadcast rights to the men\u2019s Club World Cup this year, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2025\/apr\/23\/club-world-cup-to-be-broadcast-live-on-channel-5-in-uk-after-dazn-deal\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">bought by the global streaming platform Dazn<\/a>, which sold a $1bn (\u00a3750m) stake to the Saudi Arabian vehicle SURJ Sports Investment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">A last-minute deal could also be done for the Champions Cup, although given only four matches \u2013 two semi-finals, the final and a third\u2011place game \u2013 are being played from 28 January to 1 February it is unclear whether broadcasters regard it as a valuable property. Sources with knowledge of the process said <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/fifa\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Fifa<\/a> had not run a formal tender but had targeted key broadcasters in individual markets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The Women\u2019s Super League rights holders, Sky Sports and BBC Sport, are understood to have been offered the tournament, but have shown little interest despite the involvement of Arsenal and the fact that all matches will take place in London. Fifa has yet to reveal the venues, which may have an effect on ticket sales.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Arsenal, Corinthians (the Copa Libertadores holders) and Gotham FC (the Concacaf champions) have qualified for the semi-finals. The Chinese club Wuhan Jiangda beat Auckland United in October to progress to the playoff this month against the Moroccan side AS Far for the right to face Arsenal. The second semi-final will be between Gotham and Corinthians.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The Fifa Council <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2025\/mar\/05\/fifa-launches-womens-champions-cup-but-delays-womens-club-world-cup\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">approved the creation of the Champions Cup<\/a> in March after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2025\/mar\/03\/fifa-womens-club-world-cup-could-be-delayed-beyond-2026\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">postponing the launch of a 16-team women\u2019s Club World Cup <\/a>until 2028. The Club World Cup will take place every four years, with the Champions Cup being held in the other three years of each cycle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Staging the Champions Cup has been fraught with difficulties, partly because of the congested calendar. Gotham wanted to host the finals in New York, a move welcome by Fifa, but Arsenal are understood to have objected to a US trip in the middle of their season. Arsenal are due to face Chelsea in the WSL on 24 January.<\/p>\n<p><a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"#EmailSignup-skip-link-8\" class=\"dcr-jzxpee\">skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1sbse14\">Sign up to Moving the Goalposts<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1xjndtj\">No topic is too small or too big for us to cover as we deliver a twice-weekly roundup of the wonderful world of women\u2019s football<\/p>\n<p>Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on <a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" class=\"dcr-1rjy2q9\" target=\"_blank\">theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our <a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/help\/privacy-policy\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" class=\"dcr-1rjy2q9\" target=\"_blank\">Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google <a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"https:\/\/policies.google.com\/privacy\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" class=\"dcr-1rjy2q9\" target=\"_blank\">Privacy Policy<\/a> and <a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"https:\/\/policies.google.com\/terms\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" class=\"dcr-1rjy2q9\" target=\"_blank\">Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n<p id=\"EmailSignup-skip-link-8\" tabindex=\"0\" aria-label=\"after newsletter promotion\" role=\"note\" class=\"dcr-jzxpee\">after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Fifa declined to comment, but sources indicated the media rights sales process remained in progress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fifa has been unable to sell TV rights to its first global women\u2019s club competition, the Champions Cup&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-328649","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}