English Premier League football (soccer), so tempting a product ESPN snapped up U.K. game rights and has reformated a channel there to show them on, returns Saturday, amid the buzz of FIFA 2010 World Cup and UEFA Champions League qualifying matches.

UEFA Champions League, you know, the tournament that will even be seen on FX next May, hence the promotional ads you might have seen for English Premier League matches during Rescue Me episodes. The ad is for sister channel Fox Soccer Channel, which plans two live matches on Saturday and another on tape delay.  FSC’s upcoming EPL slate is listed here.Setanta Sports USA — not to be confused with the financially ailing Setanta channel in the U.K. that had to revert the EPL rights  bought by ESPN — promoted its EPL slate today. The premium channel has one live match Saturday and three in “same-day coverage.”

(Update on Wednesday: as commenter Ivan points out, it’s been reported, by the EPLtalk blog, ESPN is close to a deal to sublicense, from Setanta SportsUSA, EPL games that air at 7:45 a.m. Saturdays and 3 p.m. ET Mondays. That’s not confirmed yet. Setanta would keep other EPL matches.)

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