MUMBAI: Bengali news channel Star Ananda will show football content to widen its audience base.

The ABP-Star run channel has inked a deal with sports marketing company Total Sports Asia (TSA) to telecast Fifa 2010 World Cup qualifiers of Italy and Spain.

With the Fifa World Cup commencing in less than 10 months, World Cup fever is steadily catching up and Star Ananda is hoping to capitalise on this to deliver world-class football programming in the football loving state of West Bengal.

TSA is the exclusive rights holder throughout Asia for all Italy and Spain World Cup qualifiers and friendlies for the Fifa World Cup 2010.

TSA associate director - sales and business development Vishal Jaison says, "We're delighted to be working with Star Ananda for the live broadcast of the Fifa World Cup qualifiers of Spain and Italy. With an impressive football catalogue offering World Cup qualifiers and other Fifa WC 2010 magazine shows, we will be actively involved in many such region centric deals to make football viewership more accessible to the vast number of fans across different states."