(will the The Special One make the jump to the WWL? Better yet, when does Mario Rosenstock let loose on Bill Belichick?)

Earlier this month, Setanta’s failure to make a contracted payment to the SPL was described by this author as “the worst news to hit the football biz since the On Digital debacle.”  Of course, that was before I imagined Trey Wingo hosting a Sunday soccer roundtable discussion.  From the Daily Mail :

ESPN have secured a clean sweep of beleaguered Setanta’s Barclays Premier League TV packages for the next four seasons.

Sportsmail understands that the Disney-owned TV channel, who already broadcast two sports channels to the UK on the Sky platform, will be the owners of both Setanta’s packages for next season – a total of 46 games.

Sky have purchased the five other bundles for season 2010-11 and were not allowed to buy the sixth.

Setanta lost the right to broadcast the matches on Friday after failing to meet a deadline for a £10million payment to the Premier League

Setanta has around 1.2m subscribers, but this is below the 1.9m it needs to break even, and it is currently thought to be running at a loss of nearly £100m a year.

It suspended new subscriptions earlier this month, prompting fears over the future of the business, and also recently missed a £3million payment to the Scottish Premier League.