Jeff Stelling has reportedly been sounded out for talks by two broadcasting giants just weeks after leaving his long-term role with Sky Sports as the presenter of Soccer Saturday. The 68-year-old signed off with Sky on the final day of the Premier League season last month and it seems as though he is wasting no time in seeking a new job in advance of the new campaign.
Stelling had initially planned to step down from Sky a year earlier but ultimately stayed on to cover the 2022/23 season before walking away from the role he has held for the last three decades. He has already been approached by two new broadcasters for discussions over a new presenting gig, according to The Telegraph, who are reporting that Amazon and the BBC have opened talks with the Soccer Saturday veteran.
It is said that Stelling has been lined up by Amazon Prime to front their football coverage, with the company having secured a deal to broadcast Champions League matches in the UK from 2024 onwards. The streaming service will share broadcasting rights with TNT Sports, formerly known as BT Sport, after UEFA ditched their previous exclusivity model last year.
The report adds that BBC Radio 5 Live are looking to add Stelling to their team of presenters and will be hoping to beat Amazon to a deal over the coming weeks. However, there is said to be a chance that Stelling will need to serve an unspecified period of gardening leave before agreeing to join a direct rival of Sky.
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Stelling is one of Britain’s best-loved football broadcasters as a result of his time on Soccer Saturday, which he started presenting in 1994 under its previous title of Sports Saturday. He announced his departure back in April with an emotional on-air speech, in which he said: “I’ve been at Sky for more than 30 years and loved every moment of my time as part of the Soccer Saturday team.
“It is now the right time to move on and give Sky Sports viewers a break from my relentless rants, bad gags and over-the-top celebrations of Hartlepool United goals. It’s been a lot of fun, for me at least!”
The 68-year-old later tweeted to confirm that he would be taking a short break to evaluate his options before taking up a new role elsewhere, saying: “The morning after the day before. It all seems like an out of body experience (with my body, you would want to be out of it).
“I wanted to thank everyone for the overwhelming number of kind messages. I’m going to take a few weeks to assess my options and then decide what is next.”
Meanwhile, it remains to be seen who Sky will eventually appoint to replace Stelling in his former role, with the broadcaster yet to announce his successor. The likes of Laura Woods, Adam Smith and Julian Warren have been linked with the job of hosting Soccer Saturday over the last few weeks, although whoever is chosen will certainly have big boots to fill in the wake of Stelling’s departure.
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