By Jonathan Easton

Sky Italia has launched a formal antitrust challenge to the deal between DAZN and Telecom Italia (TIM).

DAZN secured a ‘historic’ rights deal with Italy’s Serie A earlier this year, with the sports streamer agreeing a distribution partnership with TIM. Reuters reports that TIM would cover more than 40% of the annual payments that DAZN will pay to Serie A. TIM CEO Luigi Gubitosi meanwhile said last month that the deal will mean that TIM is the only telco that can offer customers a subscription to DAZN.

Sky however has objected to this partnership and called it “illegitimate.” The Comcast-owned Sky has argued that the tie-up will serve to strengthen TIM’s dominant position in the market by preventing DAZN from agreeing deals with other operators.

This follows a rejected bid from Sky Italia to host DAZN’s content on its platform for the next three years. That bid, reported on earlier this month, was said to be worth €1.5 billion – €1 billion (US$1.79 billion-US$1.2billion) shy of DAZN’s annual fee to Serie A.

The report from Reuters goes on to note that Sky is not alone in its opposition to the deal. The newswire, citing a number of sources, said that TIM’s rivals including mobile operator Windtre have called on Italy’s competition authorities to safeguard the right to choose where they watch football.