BT Sport’s big Champions League launch drew "into another war of words with Sky Sports on Tuesday night after the head of its consumer division hit out at its bitter rival’s attempt to sabotage the event," according to Ben Rumsby of the London TELEGRAPH. BT Sport Consumer CEO John Petter accused Sky Sports Managing Dir Barney Francis of "gamesmanship" after the latter proclaimed on Monday that football’s biggest club competition had been a ratings flop in its final five years on his own network. BT "pulled out all the stops" on Tuesday in a bid to "avoid the same fate." But all this "was overshadowed by Francis’s comments in a sky.com blog" that seemed deliberately timed to spoil BT’s biggest day "since it snatched the Champions League from Sky 19 months ago in a staggering" £897M capture of all UEFA club football. Petter, one of the architects of that bid, said, "Despite the comments that we’ve heard, Sky competed very aggressively in that auction the first time round for the Champions League and, by all accounts, weren’t at all pleased that they lost these rights. So I think there’s a bit of gamesmanship and we shouldn’t get distracted by it" (TELEGRAPH, 6/9).
