CM: Milan vs. Inter declared an ‘event of national interest’ in Italy – what it means

By Oliver Fisher -

The Champions League semi-final between AC Milan and Inter needs little extra hype, but it has been declared an event of ‘national interest’.

A whole 20 years after their last meeting in the final four of the Champions League, the derby between Inter and Milan is back on the biggest European stage with the ties to be played on 10 and 16 May and the prize a spot in the final in Istanbul.

According to Calciomercato.com, both matches will be visible to everyone in Italy despite the agreements on the division of TV rights which require Canale 5 to broadcast games on Tuesdays, as well as on Sky for pay TV subscribers, while the Wednesday game is exclusively on Prime.

However, since there are two Italian teams that will compete it becomes an ‘event of national interest’ and by law ‘the quality of the broadcast on the audiovisual media schedules must be guaranteed to citizens (…) in consideration of the content, the audience of recipients, of the function performed and of the relevance, including economic, social, cultural, sporting and religious’.

There are therefore three possible scenarios for the first leg, which will be played on Wednesday and is the responsibility of Amazon Prime.

The first hypothesis is an agreement with Mediaset which would see the match broadcasted on Prime but also free-to-air on Canale 5. The second is an agreement with Sky, so as to broadcast the match on Prime but also unencrypted on Tv8.

The third and final idea is no agreement, maintaining the exclusivity of the match but guaranteeing a Prime evening accessible to all at no cost.

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