In 2007, The FA signed deals for its broadcast rights, worth over £550m, which will allow them to re-invest more funding back into the game at all levels.

In March, The FA revealed that ITV and Setanta will be its exclusive UK broadcast partners from August 2008 to July 2012.

The deal will generate £425 million for The FA over the four-year term – a 42% increase on the current £300 million agreement with BBC and Sky, which expires on 31 July 2008.

The arrangement with ITV and Setanta ensures that The FA Cup and England matches will continue to be shown on a mixture of ‘free-to-air’ and subscription access, with the principal games remaining on ‘free-to-air’ TV.

There will also be more airtime for other FA competitions and teams, such as The FA Community Shield, The FA Trophy, FA Vase and FA Youth Cup, all of which will now be covered in greater depth by Setanta Sports. The women’s game will benefit from enhanced programming including live ITV1 coverage of the Women’s FA Cup Final.

The agreements also reflect developments in the online and mobile markets, with a whole new set of rights being added to The FA’s packages. For the first time, The FA Cup will be available on a near live basis on Setanta Sports, allowing fans the chance to see a selection of matches in full between the final whistle on Saturday and the evening highlights programme on ITV1.

Also available for the first time via Setanta Sports, will be an extended highlights video-on-demand service for The FA Cup and England matches. Finally, fans will be able to access goal clips from England and FA Cup matches via their mobile and internet via the agreement with ITV.

In October, The FA followed this by negotiating a range of deals for its international broadcast rights to FA Cup and England matches worth over £144m over the same four-year period.

This represents a 275% increase over the current agreement.

The overseas deals run in parallel with The FA's domestic TV deal with ITV and Setanta.

The FA signed exclusive agreements with broadcasters ESPN Star Sports, Fox Soccer, Setanta, Gateway Communications (GTV), SuperSport and Maltacom as well as agency deals with a Pitch International/Kentaro/World Sports Group consortium, IMG, SportFive, M-League, Traffic Sports Marketing and AMI.

In total, over 200 territories will be showing FA games from next season.