Champions League fever is gripping the nation as the dramatic comeback wins from Liverpool and Tottenham fuel a big increase in the number of fans signing up to BT Sport, which holds the exclusive UK rights to the tournament, before the final on 1 June.

BT’s chief executive, Philip Jansen, who took over from Gavin Patterson in February, said its call centres had fielded an “astounding” amount of traffic from football fans seeking to sign up to to catch the first all-English final since 2008.

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Jansen did not reveal any figures but said the two semi-final thrillers had proved to be hugely popular. He said: “The [call centre traffic] has been astounding but obviously we don’t reveal numbers. What is really interesting is app usage [to watch the matches], tablets … the numbers are amazing.”

Jansen also confirmed that BT would bid to retain the Champions League rights for a further three seasons from 2021 when they come up for auction later this year.

His predecessor had set BT on an expensive sports rights buying spree, with the current Champions League deal costing the company £1.2bn – a 32% increase on the previous contract. There has been speculation that Jansen could look to cut back at BT Sport – which has other rights, including Premiership Rugby and Premier League football – although the Champions League was expected to be seen as critical to retain.

Jansen said: “We will obviously participate in the Champions League auction next time around. And on the Premier League we will [see] at the time [of the next auction]. We will take a very disciplined approach to how we think about sports rights. There is no need to strengthen what we have currently got. We are not stepping up our costs.”

BT’s programme rights bill rose 10% last year from £763m to £841m. Shaving that budget, as well as a review to potentially raise the price of BT Sport, form part of Jansen’s plan to roll out the “gold standard” full-fibre broadband across the UK at a faster rate than previously targeted.

BT has earmarked a further £200m to increase its roll-out target for full-fibre – producing download speeds 25 times faster than the current average – from 3m to 4m households by 2021. The UK is badly lagging most developed nations, with only 7% of homes (2m) connected, compared with 71% in Spain, 89% in Portugal and 28% in France.

BT also said it was aiming to increase its target of 10m homes by the mid-2020s to 15m, if it could get regulation and policy assistance from Ofcom and the government. Jansen said to hit this target, BT would need to find more money to invest, citing a number of possibilities, including an increase in borrowing and potentially cutting payouts to shareholders. BT last cut its dividend in 2009.

“We will look at all options in terms of funding and at some point that also includes the future dividend,” he said. “We know it is important to shareholders. We are not talking about getting rid of the dividend, it is £1.5bn now and we are talking about needing £300m to £400m annually in a few years. If we want to get to 15m homes then we need more money.”

There was speculation that Jansen would reveal a cut in the dividend in BT’s final results on Thursday but he said the board was unanimous in voting to stick to its pledge to maintain it at 15.4p a share for 2018-19 and 2019-20.

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BT’s rivalry with Sky to control the lion’s share of English Premier League TV rights led to the price rocketing from £1.78bn for 2010-13 to £5.13bn for 2018-19. Patterson eventually backed off trying to supplant Sky as the prime destination for Premier League matches, saying BT just needed enough rights to be a “viable number two” in sports.

BT and Sky subsequently struck a content sharing deal to allow their customers to watch each other’s sports and entertainment channels without the need for a separate subscription, reducing the necessity for knockout bidding for prime rights. Jansen said the Sky partnership, which will start later this year, means “whatever channel products end up on our customers will be able to get them”.

He also denied a recent report that BT was considering reducing its staff headcount by 25,000. The company is working through a three-year plan to cut 13,000 jobs from a 106,000 base.

“We have a very clear plan,” he said. “There are absolutely no further plans to change our headcount at this moment in time.”