We feel it is the best sports programme ITV has ever made

ITV spokesman

The show has consistently failed to pull in as many viewers as BBC One's Dog Eat Dog, which runs against it early on Saturday evenings.

But an ITV spokesman said the football special was pulling in more viewers than the BBC's Match of The Day had last season - and said its audience was growing.

"We have no plans to move the premiership," the spokesman told BBC News Online.

"The programme is scheduled for 7pm this Saturday and next Saturday - and that's how far ahead you schedule."

Dog Eat Dog has been winning more viewers

The show - ITV's bid to showcase Premiership football - began in August with what is thought to be the network's worst Saturday night audience for five years.

However, since then, the programme, hosted by Des Lynam, has added more than one million viewers to its ratings, taking its top audience to about five million viewers.

The Mirror report said ITV director of channels David Liddiment was so concerned about the ratings performance of the programme that he had discussed its scheduling with ITV's head of sport Brian Barwick.

The paper also quoted Lynam's agent as saying that the veteran sports presenter was adamant that the programme remain at 7pm.

But ITV said that criticisms of the programme "were evaporating".

"We feel it is the best sports programme ITV has ever made - we're very proud of it, and we feel the audience for it is growing," said the spokesman.

ITV paid �183m for the rights to show premeirship football over three years.