UEFA announced today the award of four of the five media rights packages for the 2012-15 UEFA Champions League in Italy.

A five package structure of rights was offered to the market, which included live and delayed match coverage, highlights on both Tuesday and Wednesday nights and the UEFA Champions League magazine programme. Pay television broadcaster Sky Italia has secured the media rights to four of the packages. The sales process was conducted in a manner consistent with the sale of UEFA Champions League media rights throughout Europe.

Among the packages awarded to Sky Italia are: the right to broadcast two of the three live match packages which were available, including the best match on a Tuesday, and picks 3 to 16 (being the remaining match picks on both Tuesday and Wednesday after the first picks) as well as the non-exclusive rights to Tuesday and Wednesday highlights programmes.

Throughout the three seasons, Sky Italia will also cover the UEFA Champions League across the Sky Italia family of channels.

In line with UEFA's platform neutral approach, the rights will also be exploited on the internet via www.skytv.it as well as on Sky Italia's mobile portal, Sky Sport 24. As a result, football fans across Italy will have an extensive choice of coverage both on television and through online and mobile services.

Commenting on the award of these media rights, Guy-Laurent Epstein, marketing director of UEFA Events SA, said: "We are delighted to renew our successful partnership with Sky in Italy. Sky's treatment of the competition has always been first-class. We value highly their production expertise and we appreciate the immense commitment they have made to the UEFA Champions League. This deal will guarantee that the UEFA Champions League is available to a wide proportion of Italian football fans."

UEFA also wishes to thank current pay rights holder, Mediaset, for its contribution to the UEFA Champions League.

The remaining premium package, featuring live coverage of 16 Wednesday first match picks, the Saturday final (which will be simultaneously broadcast with Sky) and the UEFA Super Cup, is still to be awarded, along with the non-exclusive Tuesday and Wednesday highlights programmes.

In addition, no rights are being awarded at this stage for the UEFA Europa League in Italy. In both cases the bids received did not meet UEFA's expectations. Further announcements about these rights will be made in due course.

UEFA Events is a wholly owned subsidiary of UEFA, created to manage and handle the European governing body's commercial and event operations. It is, among other things, responsible for generating media rights, sponsorship, licensing and hospitality revenue from all professional national team and club competitions, and for managing relationships with all associated commercial partners.

TEAM Marketing is the exclusive marketing agency of UEFA for the exploitation of certain media and commercial rights relating to the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Super Cup and UEFA Europa League.