Polish public television (TVP) and commercial TV station (Polsat) still haven't agreed on the terms of showing EURO 2008 matches in TVP.

Polsat is the transmission rights owner for Poland, which it had bought for 15 millions euro. It was agreed that TVP will buy rights to show 16 from 31 matches (including all Polish matches, the opening match and the final) for 9 millions euro. All of the matches would be independently shown on Digital Polsat - paid, encrypted channels of Polsat.

All was agreed, but no one from TVP has shown up on the meeting with certifying notary to sign the agreement. They suddenly changed their offer to be 25% lower.

The owner of Polsat - Zygmut Solorz-Zak said:

"We are not going to negotiate with TVP any longer. EURO 2008 matches will be shown only on our channels. Their time is up. Fans should not blame us, only TVP for not wanting to participate in such big event as EURO 2008".

TVP sport director, former world champion in race walking - Robert Korzeniowski still is optimistic:

"There still is time for negotations. We have a lot of good will"

You know what's the most funny thing? TVP is actually payable - every single household in Poland has to pay about 7 USD per month for having a TV set! It doesn't matter if you use cable TV (which is paid separately), it doesn't matter if you use your TV set only for watching movies from VCR/DVD - you still have to pay. Isn't it nice? ;)

In 2006 the income of TVP from this licence fee was over 210 million USD. And they claim, they don't have money to buy rights to show EURO 2008 in the first place and now to buy sublicence to show selected matches.

Tomorrow I will say a little more about football matches in TVP. Stay tuned :)