Karen Egan at Enders Analysis said: “While the pragmatism of the move will be applauded, the valuation may be viewed as disappointing by some.”

She said this partly reflected the “intensively competitive” market in Spain, the uncertain outlook — with MasMovil, the country’s fourth-biggest operator, awaiting clearance from the European Commission for a joint venture with Orange — and Vodafone being a “keen seller”, as Della Valle was “under pressure to deliver a deal where her predecessor did not”.

Egan added, however, that Zegona’s “track record” in Spain made it “somewhat uniquely qualified to consider taking on such a challenge”.

Rather than be alarmed by the LFP scrapping its domestic rights auction or Serie A's latest deal being criticised by the Napoli owner, Francois Godard, a senior media analyst for Enders Analysis, believes alarm bells will not be ringing inside the Premier League.

“I think the outcome in Italy is encouraging,” Godard told The Athletic. “It could have been much worse as there is no active competition between Sky and DAZN. Nevertheless, DAZN is putting in a significant amount and Sky is paying €200m (£176.6m; $210.9m) for three non-exclusive games each weekend. If I were the Premier League, I would find this reassuring.”

“If you wanted to bid, then you had to accept the minimum price, which broadcasters thought was too high,” Godard explains. “Ligue 1 tried high prices, but I don’t think they are fundamentally unhappy to go to one-on-one negotiations.

It has become an article of faith that mega-mergers reduce competition and harm consumers. “Four players good, three players bad,” almost has become a mantra for competition watchdogs. It would be a mistake if the Competition and Markets Authority were to blindly stick to this orthodoxy when it scrutinises a deal that has the potential to shake up Britain’s mobile telecoms sector.

Tom Harrington at Enders Analysis said: “Even without taking into account downward pressure on sports rights costs and subscription fees/ad revenues (which makes monetisation harder) and a clear drop in the quality of the competition (with fewer teams), TNT should be in line for a big reduction.”

James Barford, head of telecoms research at Enders Analysis, also reckons Giffgaff may be going down the broadband avenue.

“For Giffgaff, the highest priority is probably to launch a broadband product to support the fixed network economics of its parent company VMO2,” he said.

“There has been a renewed push into ‘services beyond connectivity’ recently across a number of European telcos, although there have been many efforts at this over the years, and some of these are in reverse, such as Orange withdrawing from banking, and BT partially exiting from sports rights,” Barford explained.

Francois Godard, senior media analyst for Enders Analysis, believes that Sky will hold on to at least three of the five packages, but will be loath to lose one of its weekend slots and so could even try to have the maximum four.

“Sky could reduce costs by cutting down on one weekly slot, but we expect it to fight for four packages, consistent with its history of prioritising the prominence of its Premier League coverage,” said Godard, who added that Sky losing one TV slot out of the four it holds now would be a serious drawback.

“Sky may decide it does not want to take this risk,” he said. “This would be consistent with the company’s history of being ready to enter bidding wars if needed to keep its Premier League standing.”

“Without the Premier League, TNT Sports would likely lose its premium aura and need to cut its retail prices,” said Godard, who also views YouTube as a “long shot” while Apple has ruled itself out.

Douglas said “For obvious reasons, people will want to see inside the Telegraph accounts and its subscription model. That’s not the same as saying many fully loaded bids are inevitable.”

François said “My basic expectation is that there will be some room left for Dazn...The only possible speculative outsider I am keeping an eye on would be YouTube. Dazn won’t blow up the auction; they have been highly cautious not to push up prices in country-by-country deals. They are not crazy. From a Premier League perspective, if they can get a modest 5% increase in what they make as a headline figure, even if annually they receive less, that will be a good result.”