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The Football League and BBC Sport have appointed BBC Motion Gallery to digitise and license the rights to six decades of archived footage.
The deal, which runs until 2016, is the first of its kind in the UK where a sporting organisation and broadcaster have pooled their resources to create a joint archive.
The archive dates back to the 1950s and features iconic moments from the League Cup and priceless footage of vintage teams from the past sixty years, including the great Leeds United sides of the seventies, Liverpool's European Cup winners of the eighties through to Manchester United and Arsenal's double-winning teams of the nineties and noughties.
As part of the agreement, BBC Motion Gallery has brought together two partners: Thought Equity Motion, who will digitise content and license clips in the U.S.A., and North One Television, who will produce finished programming from the archive.
Paul Maidment, Director of Motion Gallery at BBC Worldwide commented on the deal, saying: "We're delighted to be working with The Football League and BBC Sport. Having Thought Equity Motion and North One Television on board were important factors in helping us agree what is a significant deal for the industry, and we hope to grow even more in the next few years with similar deals."
Richard Heaselgrave, The Football Chief Commercial Officer said: "Over the last sixty years, The Football League has delivered some of the most famous and iconic moments in sports broadcasting. Through this agreement, this history will live on and give broadcasters and advertisers the chance to share it with fans across the globe."
