The company, which built its success in the UK broadcast market on its live football offering, saw shares slump 9.95% to 837.5p in early trading this morning after BT announced it had secured exclusive rights to Europe’s premier club competition, and the Europa League competition.

Sky shares had previously fallen more than 10% in May on news that BT Sport had secured rights to some Premier League games. The company’s shares remain above the mid-700p lows seen then, despite today’s fall.

BT announced this weekend it will pay £900m for the Champions League rights, currently jointly held by BSkyB and ITV, for three seasons from 2015/16 onwards.

BT shares also dipped on concerns the company had overpaid for the rights, but recovered to stand roughly flat on the day shortly before 10am.

The largest faller in the All Share, however, was Royal Sun Alliance. The insurer followed up last week’s profit warning by revealing it had suspended the CEO of its Ireland division and two others due to “issues with the Irish claims and finance functions”.

That announcement sent the shares down some 11% to 107.5p. The wider FTSE 100 was up 0.1% at 6,713.