CHANNEL Nine and Fox Sports are embroiled in a legal battle over presenter Yvonne Sampson and her defection to the pay-TV network.

Nine’s director of sport Tom Malone has fired off a legal letter to his Fox Sports counterpart Steve Crawley as the hostility between the networks over the NRL expert threatens to become an all-out war.

Channel 9 is trying to stop Sampson from launching or promoting Fox Sports’ new 24-hour rugby league channel in February, claiming she has a six-month non-compete clause in her contract which expires on December 31.

Fox Sports lawyers have read the contract and are challenging the clause.

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Its executives are treating the launch of the 24/7 channel as the biggest and most important project in the network’s history and want Sampson at the front and centre of it.

media_camera Channel Nine and Fox Sports are caught in a bitter legal stoush over presenter Yvonne Sampson.

The situation is getting nasty with one senior Nine staffer being accused of trying to leak financial details of Sampson’s negotiations in a bid to unsettle current staff at Fox Sports.

The fight between the networks places commentator and presenter Peter Sterling in an awkward position because he works for both Nine and Fox Sports.

With Sampson leaving, there is talk Nine will use Sterling as her replacement to host its Thursday, Friday and Sunday coverage plus State of Origin and the finals series.

If that happens, there is speculation Fox Sports would offer Sterling an early exit from his contract that still has 12 months to run.

His Wednesday night Sterlo On The Couch show is the one rugby league program on Fox Sports that didn’t improve in its ratings last season, while Matty Johns and NRL 360 enjoyed strong increases along with the live football coverage.