England will face Kazakhstan on Saturday in a group 6 world cup qualifying match at Wembley stadium. This is going to be England’s first home match in world cup 2010 qualifying round. With six points from the opening two matches, England is now leading the point table in Group six. However, Kazakhstan has managed only three points from three matches so far. They currently stand in the second last position in the group. The match kicks off at 17:15 BST (British Standard Time).
England fans are eagerly waited for this match and it has already been reported that all of the tickets have been sold out for the match. Specially, after England’s impressive 4-1 victory at Zagreb last month, English fans are now interested to see the sparkling form of the home team. However, England’s experience in the last match played in Wembley was not so good as England players were booed by the furious English fans who were disappointed at England’s come-from-back 2-2 draw against Czech Republic in a friendly match.
This time, it is expected to be different as England indicated to come back to their prime form in the match against Croatia. Moreover, opposition Kazakhstan is not a football power in Europe. The 120-ranked Kazakhstan will definitely go into the match as underdog and anything less than an impressive victory for England would not satisfy the England fans. After England narrowly missed out on Euro 2008 finals, England fans were very much disappointed at their performance. However, the recent performance against Croatia has been impressive and English fans are now expecting England to show similar dominance over Kazakhstan.
Wembley stadium can accommodate 90,000 football fans. So, the rest of the English fans have to enjoy the match on their television sets. However, the good news is that England fans do not have to face the similar problem that they did in England’s first two qualifying matches. Irish sports channel, Setanta Sports, holds the television broadcast right of England’s away world cup qualifying matches. As Setanta Sports is a pay-per-view channel, a terrestrial channel like BBC or ITV was supposed to air the highlights of the match. This has been going on traditionally. However, this time, Setanta Sports failed to make a deal with any terrestrial channel to air the highlights of the match. Both BBC and ITV found Setanta’s demand too much to sign a deal for airing the highlights of the match. This created agitation among the fans across England. England supporters were seen chanting “We hate Setanta” during first two world cup qualifying matches. Later on, FA chairman Lord Triesman called the broadcasters in a meeting and at last, Setanta and ITV signed on a deal which is reportedly worth £500,000. So, from now, England fans will be able to watch the highlights of England’s away matches in world cup qualifying round on ITV.
However, there is no such complexity when it comes to England’s home matches like the one against Kazakhstan. England fans will be able to watch the match live on ITV television channel as ITV holds the television right of England’s home matches. ITV is an UK-based television channel which air its program for free as it is a terrestrial television channel. That means, it is a free-to-air channel. So, England fans do not need to pay to watch this match. Many England fans missed England spectacular performance against Croatia due to the problems among the television broadcasters. Now, ahead of the Kazakhstan match, English fans are ready not to miss any more action of England football team. However, now it is up to England players to ensure that their fans will not miss their impressive form once again. Anyway, if you reside in England or currently in England, then do not forget to tune on ITV on 11 October 2008.
If you want to know the program schedule of ITV, then visit the official website of ITV here.