In a letter to the 72 clubs of the Football League, David Burns, chief executive of the Football League, said that the ITV companies are obliged to stick to their deal, according to a report in the Financial Times.
Carlton and Granada believe they overpaid for the three-year deal and have said that they want to renegotiate it. However, a renegotiated deal will threaten the survival of many of the league's struggling smaller clubs.
It has been previously reported that ITV Sport could face closure unless it renegotiates the £315m contract with the Football League. Having already lost £800m on their ITV Digital joint venture, Carlton and Granada can not afford the cost of the contract under the current terms.
ITV Sport had been seen as a key part of the ITV Digital offering, but it has failed to perform as well as expected. The channel is reckoned to have attracted only around 150,000 subscribers out of ITV Digital's total of 1.2m.
Carlton and Granada were thought to have been in a strong position to renegotiate the contract, as the League's only alternative to ITV Sport is Sky, which has the rights to Premier League matches.
According to the report, under the existing contract, which was agreed a year ago before the sports rights bubble burst, the league is still expecting two payments of £89m at the start of the next two seasons.
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