The days of pay-per-view Premier League football on television could be set to return after American sports broadcaster ESPN bought the two packages of live match rights that financially-troubled broadcaster Setanta lost last week.

ESPN, owned by the Disney Cooperation, have bought the rights to televise 46 live games next season as well as packages to broadcast 23 games for the three following seasons, after beating off competition from Channel 4 and Sky Sports.

Russell Wolf, Executive Vice President of ESPN international said, ‘œThis move demonstrates our commitment to British sports fans and our ongoing commitment to delivering football to fans around the world across a variety of media.’

ESPN will now set up several methods of distribution which are thought to include negotiations with Sky.

When Setanta had the right, subscribers paid £10 a month to see all the live games and view Setanta’s other channels, including the official ‘˜LFCTV’ channel.