The Advertising Standards Authority has told Setanta Sports that it can’t advertise Non-League fixtures in the way they have been and then not actually broadcast them.

Earlier in the season, I was happy to see Setanta advertising coverage of Non-League matches. They’d taken out adverts in the Non-League Paper and I think some reports appeared in local media around the more actively-followed clubs, like Cambridge.

It seems that they advertised games such as Altrincham vs Cambridge, Aldershot vs Exeter and Woking v Farsley, then chose to show Champions League or UEFA Cup matches instead at those times. The adverts said “fixtures correct at time of going to print” and gave no suggestion that Setanta might simply choose to show Euro matches instead. The full ruling is on the ASA web site.

Did you pay for Setanta to watch Blue Square Premier matches and then get only Eurofootball? Are Setanta any better than Sky? Does the cut-throat TV market mean that channels have to do this sort of thing to fans?