TV War Prevents Millions Seeing Madrid And Barça

The war of words between two Spanish broadcast companies meant that nobody outside of Spain could watch the Madrid derby live on Saturday evening.

A disagreement between production company Mediapro and Sogecable meant that the opening weekend of the season was in chaos as several games were embroiled in the dispute.

As well as Real Madrid game against Atlético, the game between Racing and Barça was also unable to be seen by many and that has caused the problem to escalate.

Television channel La Sexta, who are owned partly by Mediapro, are responsible for screening games to an international audience, but they were unable to at the weekend.

"Sogecable prevented la Sexta's cameras from enterting the Bernabéu stadium on the day of the derby," said a source from Mediapro.

"They also refused to listen to the alternatives put forward by Madrid to enable the game to be shown abroad."

The Madrid derby is one of the biggest games in the SPanish league calandar and Mediapro are angry at being stopped from showing it.

"This has caused great harm to the clubs and to Mediapro and has provoked a deep unease in the highest echelons of Real Madrid," the source added.

Sogecable announced it would cut the signal to rival La Sexta, the free-to-air channel which belongs to Mediapro, because it still owes Sogecable €58m for matches over the last two years.

Mediapro responded by blocking broadcasts on Sogecable's pay-TV service, Digital+, who were unable to show highlights of the three games that la Sexta covered at the weekend.