The England v Finland match was no surprise since CABLE made their deal for FA Cup matches a few weeks ago. The deal included a package of World Cup games and sewed up almost all of England's remaining games. CABLE acquired the rights to England's remaining home matches plus those of Germany and Greece, who both are in England's group. The only England match not covered by the package was the one away to Albania. But now CABLE have got hold of that one, too.

It will be shown late on Wednesday (2.45am Thursday, on Sports 2), overlapping with the Portugal v Netherlands match on Sports 1 (4.00am) which should be more of a contest. Just think Figo v Davids, Nuno Gomes v Kluivert and you get the picture. Portugal have already won in Holland and the Dutch campaign badly needs a win to get it kick-started.

So England fans in the SAR have the opportunity to see Sven Goran Eriksson's Brave New World begin in earnest.

It's even better news for Scots because the national side are rarely seen here. Tomorrow's match will be a tough one because the Belgians are going through a bit of a purple patch and hammered San Marino 10-1 to lead the group from Scotland on goal difference.

Tomorrow's third live game, Romania v Italy, should be tasty, too. The Italians won the home match against Romania 3-0 and bad blood between these sides going back to Euro 2000 should ensure a lively affair.

And Wednesday night's European action is followed by a live qualifier from South America with Uruguay at home to Paraguay. Then for real insomniacs that's followed by a delayed showing of Ecuador v Brazil.

And let's not forget our own backyard as CABLE pile on the footie overload with continued coverage of Hong Kong's abortive qualifying campaign. Hong Kong must be one of the most frustrating teams to watch, especially if you watch them with a modicum of partisan feeling. In the World Cup matches played here recently we saw them live or delayed on CABLE and in every case the home boys created a host of chances but wasted most of them. The group stage has now moved to Qatar where they are playing the same three teams - Qatar, Malaysia and Palestine - again.

The first of the three matches was shown live on CABLE on Tuesday and once again it was a tale of opportunity lost by the lightweight Hong Kong forwards. They lost 1-0 to Palestine, which franked the Palestinians' status as the second-best team in the group behind Qatar. That result eliminated Hong Kong, so maybe in the next two matches (both on live) they will be liberated and able to hit the target more easily. They face the lively Malaysians tonight (1.1am Saturday) looking to avenge an unjust 2-0 loss from the Hong Kong round robin. And on Sunday at 11.15pm they face the group favourites Qatar, who also won 2-0 in Hong Kong.

For those of you hooked on top-flight European club action this is a relatively barren week. But why not check out last week's Milan v Bari match which is on CABLE tonight. It marked Milan's first match since the departure of coach Alberto Zaccheroni.

And last week's Bundesliga match, the Munich derby between 1860 and Bayern should be interesting viewing for Manchester United fans because their team are due to take on Bayern in the Champions' League quarter-finals.

The continual guessing game about whether or not important international matches will be seen or not is a frustrating result of the changing television market.

The issue of who won what football rights in what place should be only a technicality of interest to lawyers and media moguls. But it has been vexing Hong Kong viewers for more than a year now because of the unpredictable state of the schedules. There was more news on the pay-TV front this week with another holder of a Pay TV licence saying they no longer want to offer the service. Hong Kong Network TV (NETV) became the second licensee to do so after Rupert Murdoch's STAR TV scrapped plans to launch a Pay TV service saying it would not be profitable.

It's difficult to tell what that means for football viewing in the future. NETV's withdrawal leaves only three of the five original government-granted licensees still standing. The hopes of football fans are resting on one of those three - Yes Television, Pacific Digital Media and Galaxy Satellite Broadcasting (owned by TVB) - being able to step in and pick up the rights to the major competitions, notably the English Premier League (EPL), FA Cup and UEFA Champions' League (UCL), which have all vanished from CABLE's portfolio in the past 15 months.

NETV said it could not find a viable business option for Pay-TV transmission after 18 months of preparation. They blamed overcharging by network operators - the companies whose cables will carry the service - as a key factor in their decision. There are two pre-existing Pay TV companies in Hong Kong - iCABLE (owned by Wharf) and Cyberworks' iTV. If licensees continue to fall away at this rate CABLE could yet be back in for the rights to EPL and UCL which are currently held by ESPN in this region. Now that would be ironic.