The head of BT's retail division is candid enough to admit he is a customer of British Sky Broadcasting, the satellite television operator.

Gavin Patterson, whose division is competing with BSkyB in the crucial pay-TV market, has a home subscription with BT's rival because he is a fervent supporter of Liverpool Football Club.

Without a BSkyB subscription, he cannot watch all Liverpool's games that are shown live on TV.

BT Retail's TV service, called BT Vision, offers some Liverpool matches through a deal with Setanta, the Irish broadcaster that owns the TV rights to 46 live games each season.

But BSkyB owns the rights to 92 live games, including all the clashes between the "big four" clubs: Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United.

Mr Patterson claims that BSkyB has refused to enter a wholesale deal with BT, under which BT Vision could offer its customers the live football available on the satellite TV operator's sports channels. BSkyB rejects the allegations.

However, there are hopes that the stand-off could soon be solved. Last month Ofcom, the media watchdog, proposed that BSkyB provide rivals with access to its premium content, led by live football and blockbuster movies, at regulated wholesale rates.

BT and Virgin Media, the cable TV operator, should then be able to resell BSkyB's sports channels to their customers at a profit.

"We are encouraged by what we see in the Ofcom report," says Mr Patterson, in his first interview since becoming head of BT Retail in June.

He inherited the division from Ian Livingston, now BT's chief executive, and it continues to record a solid operating performance.

However, the UK's leading fixed-line phone company is looking for new ways to bolster its slowing revenue growth, and this explains the importance of BT's face off with BSkyB over access to the satellite TV operator's premium content.

Broadband has been BT's domestic growth motor over the past five years, but the market is maturing. About 60 per cent of homes now have broadband.

BT Retail is seeking to increase its revenue by selling services based around the broadband connection, and BT Vision is perhaps the best example of this strategy.

However, BT Vision has just 282,000 customers. BSkyB has 9m, and its appeal is rooted in its live football and blockbuster movies.

Mr Patterson says it will be "challenging" but not impossible for BT to hit its target of having 2m-3m BT Vision customers by 2011 by organic growth alone.

He suggests it would be easier to reach the target if BT Vision can offer its customers the live football and big movies available on BSkyB's channels, which should be possible under Ofcom's proposed wholesale access regime.

An alternative strategy for BT is to bid against Sky for the TV rights to live football at an auction due next year.

Mr Patterson says a BT bid for the rights is an option, though he stresses it would probably be done with a partner. Setanta is the obvious candidate, although he does not name the company.

BT Vision is not BT Retail's only means of increasing revenue. Mr Patterson's first product launch after being named head of the division was BT ToGo, a mobile phone that provides consumers with internet access as well as voice calls and text messages.

The smartphone, which operates on a fixed-line connection inside the home, was criticised by some analysts because outside it uses second-generation mobile technology.

The 2G technology provides relatively slow web surfing speeds, although Mr Patterson says a 3G handset will be available next year.

There were 34,000 BT ToGo customers by the end of June, and Mr Patterson insists BT is not seeking to compete with the mobile operators, which have millions of customers.

BT's main battle remains in the fixed-line broadband market, where Virgin is trumpeting how it will be the first company to offer customers download speeds of up to 50 megabits a second.

Virgin will make those speeds available across its network, which covers half of the population, by the middle of 2009.

BT, by contrast, is increasing speeds from 8-24 mbps for 40 per cent of the population by next spring.

Higher speeds are needed if consumers, for example, want to watch high-definition television over broadband, and Mr Patterson says he expects increasing demand for bandwidth-hungry activities. Virgin and BT are expected to charge consumers a premium for faster speeds.

But Mr Patterson stresses the company's £1.5bn plan to raise speeds further, to 30-100 mbps, is dependent on discussions with Ofcom over how BT can secure an adequate investment return.

"If the economics don't work and we can't make a fair return, the board won't agree it," he says.