On Sundays and after 8pm sponsorship for public service broadcasters has been brought in to protect certain events, such as German national football matches, from falling into the hands of pay TV channels.

Speaking at the the SPONSORs Sports Summit here, Prokop said: "Athletics is not on the list so I wonder does athletics not have to be protected?

"There is a value attached to each sport, athletics seems to be valued less than football.

"This is not logical and does not make sense."

"All sports apart from football are wanted, and we don't want a situation where just football is broadcast in colour and everything else in black and white."

Zeljko Karajica, chief executive of Sport1, countered that "we want to protect TV but don't want all these matches on pay TV, and this is why German national football games are protected."

The agreement was made by the 16 presidents of Germany's states, and Dagmar Freitag, the chair of the German Olympic Sports Federation (DOSB), confirmed that she expected the agreement to be in effect by the end of the year.

Non mainstream sports are particularly concerned about the impact of the ruling upon their revenues.

Smaller channels could also be seriously affected by the ruling, as it means that 2-3 per cent of their income could be reduced as a result, the equivalent of one year's inflation.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]