Just hours before the scheduled tip-off and with the uncertainty surrouding the situation due to TV rights the managing board of the Greek A1 decided that the new season will start this weekend as scheduled, until further notice.
The reason of the uncertainty is that most teams have not sold their TV rights due to lack of interest of low offers by TV channels. The League was also promised help by some Government officials due to the fact that Greek State TV withdrew its offer to cover the games of 10/14 teams and a private subscription TV made offers to some of those 10 clubs, but not all, something which did not satisfy the League.
At the moment only four clubs have sold their TV rights: Panathinaikos, Olympiacos (ANT1-free to air), Maroussi and PAOK (NovaSports-subscription). But the thing is that ANT1 finds Panathinaikos and Olympiacos TV rights too expensive given the current economical situation (1.5 million euros each) and is looking a way to get rid of them, meaning to sell them to another channel, of course below the 1.5m euros price they paid just to limit their loses, with NovaSports being the favourite, espcially regarding Olympiacos TV rights.
A further meeting will be held next month to discusss any developments regarding the issue.
