ITV could make Champions League football available to its arch-rival Sky after its humiliating climbdown over the scheduling of The Premiership highlights programme.

As concerns mount that ITV's big-money gamble on sport is not paying off - and the three-year deal for the Premiership highlights cost £183 million sterling - sources suggest ITV Digital could be forced to sell coverage of Europe's premier club competition to satellite subscribers as well as its own.

That would mean ITV Sport, a new channel launched at a cost of £200 million and with the rights to live Champions League, Nationwide League and Worthington Cup games, being made available to Sky. Allowing ITV Sport output to go on to Sky would increase ITV Digital's revenue and help appease UEFA, which is worried the Champions League could be damaged if it continues to attract tiny audiences.

Any move to make the channel more widely available would delight those who, despite paying upwards of £20 a month for Sky Sports programming, find that they have to go elsewhere to watch many games because they have the wrong digital receiver.

At the moment all Champions League games are only available to subscribers to the ITV Sport channel. As few as 15,000 people have been tuning into big games.

There is growing feeling inside the two television companies that after years of cut-throat competition and brinkmanship it is in both parties' interests for live coverage of Europe's premier club competition to be made available to Sky's digital 5.5 million satellite homes.

ITV Sport is not available on Sky because of a long-running battle over sports rights among Britain's television stations. Live and exclusive coverage of events such as top football matches are seen as one of the biggest selling points when trying to persuade consumers to buy a pay-television service.

Champions League football is one of ITV's main attractions and the network is reluctant to let Sky get its hands on it. However, there is a growing sense of crisis at ITV as the economic downturn starts to hit profits and debts mount.