Ukraine vs England Live Online - Watch It For Free

Something amazing has happened, with 2 games still to play England have actually already qualified for the world cup finals in 2010. That’s just not the English way of doing things, it’s much better to leave it till the last minute of the last game. However just because England have qualified it doesn’t mean that it’s the end of the story, because there are still 2 games left and one of them, tonight against the Ukraine, is against a team that is still pushing for qualification themselves. Not only is this a very big game for the Ukraine but with only a handful of international games till the World Cup Finals start (2 qualifiers plus 2 confirmed friendlies for now) it’s one of the last chances for Fabio Capello to test his team. Judging by the media that is exactly what will be happening tonight as well, the England team on the pitch in the Ukraine will be as strong as it possibly can be.

So the next question is of course, why is nobody showing Ukraine vs England live? The English invented the game, it’s their national sport and yet none of the TV networks want to show a full international (this is no friendly people) in a year before the World Cup? What’s gone wrong here, has the Ukraine gone the way of the rest of Europe and decided that the English are best for ripping off? Were their rights demands too high for even Sky? Who knows? But either way it has resulted in no British TV company showing the game live. On the other hand a web based provider are going to show the game for the princely sum of £11.99 – that’s a huge amount of cash for watching one game of football online. Perhaps it was their bid (funded by a ridiculous price to its viewers) that put of the traditional TV companies? The thing to remember about this is that watching live sport online should be a last resort. Most people these days have big TVs and comfy chairs and that’s how they want to enjoy their live sport. It’s how I want to watch England. Not crouched over a 15” monitor trying to decide who is who. Live football on the internet should be a last resort and the price should reflect that. Even the FA recognise this, yesterdays England under 21 match was streamed live for free by the FA, a brilliant move to increase exposure to the young players in that team. Of course not everything can be free but whatever happened to charging a price that was relevant to the value you were giving. Do people really see £11.99 as value for money?

There is some good news in this story though. Several of the online bookmakers have been promoting live streaming football for some time now and it is one of these that SHOULD benefit the most from this terrible decision. Bet365 do have the rights to stream the game to UK customers and it’s all yours for a simple free sign up. You will have to fund your account with “something” but that doesn’t mean that you have to bet, either way it’s a much simpler and cost effective way of watching the Ukraine vs England match live online. Not only that but once you have your Bet365 account you get free access to loads more live sports streamed online as well. It really is a no brainer.