David Ferguson, an analyst at Barclays Stockbrokers, said in reports yesterday that even though "the heat is on ITV Digital" the broadcaster will be in a good position to negotiate.
Ferguson believes that the league will back down eventually and be prepared to talk, because the only alternative buyer for the rights to the Nationwide League matches is BSkyB, which he thinks would not pay the clubs the kind of money they are looking for.
He said: "There is a lot of posturing going on, but ultimately they will sit down and do a deal."
Earlier today, it emerged that Football League chief executive David Burns sent a letter to the league's 72 clubs saying that Carlton and Granada were contractually obliged to honour the deal.
It is believed that a renegotiation of the deal could mean closure for a number of the league's smaller clubs, which rely on the income from the TV rights deal.
ITV Digital owners Carlton and Granada began to air doubts about the deal late last year when it emerged that coverage of the Nationwide football matches was failing to attract as many viewers as they had hoped for. Cutting costs is essential for ITV Digital, which is already in financial difficulty and some way off break-even point, forecast for 2004.
Carlton and Granada believe they overpaid for the deal and are trying to recoup some of the money in an attempt to save their troubled subscription channel ITV Sport, which relies heavily on football and which has only attracted 155,000 customers out of ITV Digital's 1.2m subscribers.
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