Sky Sports News forced to apologize after the broadcast went down moments after the cup draw

Sky Sports News suffered a malfunction on Thursday afternoon as the program cut out shortly after conducting a cup draw.

The round of 16 draw for the Vertu Trophy, the competition that incorporates League One and League Two teams alongside several select Premier League Under 21 sides, had just been taking place.

Presenter Will Perry was joined by former EFL stars Luke Chambers and Joby McAnuff as various teams learned their fates.

However, shortly after that finished, the program cut out, with fans left curious as to what had gone on.

The channel had reverted to its usual format and was discussing the breaking news that Jude Bellingham was not expected to start for England against Serbia on Thursday night.

Host Matt Kabir Floyd was leading the debate and also touched on the topic of Thomas Tuchel’s various selection headaches.

Sky Sports News cut out on Thursday afternoon shortly after conducting a cup draw

Focus then moved on to coverage of the DP World Tour Championship where Tommy Fleetwood and Rory McIlroy were in the running towards the top of the leaderboard.

However, the program then cut out and Floyd went quiet, before a message appeared on the screen which simply read: ‘We’re really sorry for this temporary fault.’

During the outage, the typical Sky Sports News screen was still operating, with the yellow ticker-tape continuing to run at the bottom.

The outage continued for a few minutes, after which the program moved to commercials.

The adverts then ran more than five minutes before the program returned and continued as usual, with no mention of the issue as Floyd pressed on with his duties.

MORE TO FOLLOW