Mexico's Grupo Televisa SA, the world's largest Spanish-language broadcaster plans to sue Hughes Electronics Corp.'s DirecTV in a dispute over the rights to broadcast games at the 2002 World Cup soccer tournament.

Content provider DirectTV cashed a US$15 million letter of credit (L/C) on the grounds that Televisa screened more content than the two companies' agreement allowed.

News programmes

Televisa says it will file a complaint against DirectTV in Mexican and US courts to recover the receipts from the L/C. Televisa paid DirecTV US$9 million dollars to air the tournament on its Mexican television channels and earned an additional US$25 million in advertising revenue associated with its World Cup coverage.

Televisa agreed to restrict the use of World Cup content on its Sky satellite service, which competes with DirecTV, to general news programmes. DirecTV claims Sky violated the agreement by airing news programmes dedicated to World Cup coverage.

Hughes Electronics paid US$400 million dollars to the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and sports marketing company ISL Worldwide for broadcast rights in Latin America of the world's largest soccer tournament.

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