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The FA Cup will be broadcast live on the internet for the first time next month when the Football Association streams the first-round tie between Oldham Athletic and Leeds United on its own website. The game will be shown free of charge and follows the recent experiment with the England Under-21 match against Macedonia as the FA continues to struggle to find a broadcaster to take over the rights previously held by Setanta.

The broadcasters of the Ukraine v England World Cup qualifier earlier this month, Kentaro and Perform, insisted that internet screening was the future for football and said the match had attracted an audience of 500,000.

FA negotiations with the major broadcasters are ongoing, with the need to secure a deal that will recover some of the lost revenue in the wake of Setanta's collapse regarded as an absolute priority. It had been hoped that an agreement would be in place before the FA Cup first round but there has been little sign of progress and today the FA confirmed that there was no prospect of that situation changing before the second round.

As well as announcing that the Oldham match would be streamed on its website, the FA revealed that ITV, who had previously broadcast one live game in each round, would be showing two during the first and second rounds of the competition this year. ITV has chosen to screen the first-round match between the Zamaretto League club Paulton Rovers and Norwich City on 7 November and Charlton's trip to Northwich Victoria the following day.

"We are extremely pleased that our long-term broadcast partner, ITV, have expanded their already comprehensive coverage of the competition, bringing great early-round action to their viewers," said Watmore. "We are also excited to be broadcasting live matches on the internet once again. While we continue negotiating our long-term broadcast rights strategy we are delighted that supporters will be in a position to access these games at no additional cost."

There is a feeling the FA has bought some breathing space by outlining its plans up to the conclusion of the second round, with the period between now and January, when the third round starts and Premier League clubs enter the competition, representing a window of opportunity to bring another TV partner to the table. However, just how much Sky, the BBC or ESPN would be prepared to pay for the FA Cup rights remains to be seen.

(Source: Guardian.co.uk)