According to a report in the Financial Times, East's contract is up for renewal soon, but the deputy managing director of Sky Sports has been approached to lead the acquisition of sports rights for Setanta. The Irish company already owns rights to Scottish Premier League matches as well as other sports rights.
East's boss, Sky Sports managing director Vic Wakeling, has already signed a deal to stay on at the broadcaster until 2008.
Setanta is set to contest Sky next year for the next Premier League live football broadcast rights packages, which will take shape after the Premier League and the European Commission have agreed a fair way to ensure that more than one broadcaster gets the rights.
The commission attempted to influence the sale of rights when the current 2003/2004 to 2006/2007 deal was negotiated, succeeding in dividing matches into four packages. However, Sky outbid other broadcasters for every package.
BSkyB won the rights to screen all 138 games a season for three years, beginning with the 2004-2005 season, with a 拢1.024bn offer in December 2003.
This time around, the commission could insist on a cap on the number of matches that can be bought by an individual broadcaster.
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