Yahoo believes its decision to make football fans pay to watch clips of the World Cup is a winner.

The largest internet portal is playing host to the multi-lingual official Fifa World Cup site - the most successful sports event website ever.

The managing director of Yahoo UK & Ireland, Martina King, believes the site is successful because fans at work can follow the progress of their team, wherever they are in the world.

"We have absolutely tapped into the passions that exist for each of the local fans that we have across the world," Ms King says.

"We can build the global, and we can also absolutely look after and support the local."

Pay-per-view

But fans who want to watch video highlights of games have to pay a �14 subscription for the privilege.

Four minutes of highlights are available online two hours after the match has finished.

We've got lots of different opportunities for generating new streams of revenue

Martina King

Despite the still-limited picture quality for the majority of users, Ms King says fans at work who are unable to watch the matches live will be willing to pay for the service.

"Not everyone is going to have a television set," she says.

"So the internet provides a great opportunity for anyone who's a football fan to be able to follow the games, well follow the whole of the World Cup from their desk."

Yahoo's global advertising revenue has fallen considerably over the last year, prompting it to focus more closely on other options such as online content.

Ms King says: "We are absolutely committed to the advertising revenue stream, but at the same time reducing our dependence on it and looking for lots of new opportunities.

"The great thing is we've got both.

"Advertising remains absolutely critical to our business and critical to our future. But at the same time we've got lots of different opportunities for generating new streams of revenue."

Broadband

Ms King believes that British Telecom's decision to reduce the cost of broadband technology is vital.

It delivers better quality video which will make Yahoo's content more attractive to users.

England celebrate their win against Argentina

"What we've been looking for is the breakthrough and BT has now come through with the breakthrough," she says.

"We now have an affordable, always on, fast internet package that's available in the UK, so I think that that means we'll be seeing far more take-up of broadband in the home."

Half of all the page views on the FIFA site come from the English speaking section site as fans of teams such as England, Ireland and the US keep track of their football heroes.

"We built the FIFA World Cup site as a hub and a place that anyone whose interested in football globally can go to. But we've also brought it out in seven languages."

Yahoo was launched by two US university students during the dot-com boom.

But it has been forced to announce its first major overhaul in five years this week as it battles the sluggish online advertising market.