The Tongan public will be able to watch live some of the games during the new Federation Shield Cup rugby league tournament now being held in England and France, but not all the games, according to a spokesperson for Tonfön television.

Tonfön have been negotiating with IMG Media, a sports agent for rugby, football and league worldwide based in the United Kingdom to acquire the rights to broadcast the tournament in Tonga. Samoa also showed interested in paying part of the costs to acquire rights to televise the tournament.

However, yesterday Tonfön received word from IMG that they would be televising only half of the games because it was not financially viable for them, therefore the games between England v Tonga, and England v Samoa have been excluded.

The other two matches between France against both Tonga and Samoa will be broadcast live on Tonfön TV through Television New Zealand, including the final on November 12.

Tonga...s national rugby league team the Mate Ma...a Tonga is competing in the Federation Shield against Samoa, France and England.

The match between the Mate Ma'a Tonga and Samoa which, which was also counted as the last Pacific Qualifiers match was played in Leeds, England, on October 22 won by Tonga 18-10. Tonfön will televise the game, hopefully next week when a tape will arrive from the UK.

Schedule of Federation shield matches to be shown live on Tonfön:

October 29 - Samoa v France,

November 5 - Tonga v France,

November 12- Finals.