The involvement of the competition authorities in the football broadcast market was unwelcome to the Premier League – BskyB alliance. First, the investigation of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission into the proposed merger between BSkyB and Manchester United in 1998 concluded that it would not be in the public interest. Second, there was a court case involving the Office of Fair Trading and the Premier League over the collective selling of television rights. The League in its defence claimed that without collective selling, the it would be less competitive as the smaller clubs within the League would not be able to generate enough revenue. Claims of this nature are anti – competitive and are generally viewed as being anti – consumer. It is unlikely that in other industries this level of collusion would be allowed. For example, Virgin Airways and British colluded in the pricing of transatlantic flights and consequently in 2007 competition authorities fined British Airways £121m; Virgin Airways escaped any fines as it whistle – blew and brought it to the attention of the authorities. The Restrictive Practices Court ruled in the Premier League’s favour and collective selling was allowed to continue. Third, the European competition authority has been unhappy with BSkyB’s monopoly in the market for live Premier League matches. In 2007, it ruled that no single broadcaster should be allowed to exclusively acquire all the live rights to Premier League matches. The practical implication of that ruling is that the rights have now been divided into six packages. For the period of 2007 – 8 to 2009 – 10, BSkyB acquired five of these, with the sixth to a small broadcaster Setanta. The financial failings of Setanta resulted in the sixth package being acquired by ESPN