Kick-off in the Euro 2004 football tournament in Portugal next month will fill the nation's pubs with fans, glued to the action on the big screen.

But, for the first time, there may also be a few watching goals on much smaller screens as well. Subscribers to T-Mobile who own high-end GPRS (not 3G) phones with video playback facilities will be able to review the key moments in a game, including goals, controversial incidents and red/yellow card fouls - only minutes after they have happened - on their mobile phones.

It is a very significant development for T-Mobile, and it is also something of a watershed for sport video on mobiles. T-Mobile's rivals - especially 3 and Vodafone - will be monitoring what happens closely.

T-Mobile has priced the service competitively. For £5, subscribers will be offered all the video action for their team, no matter how far they progress in the tournament.

Supporting the video is a range of services, including an innovative option that enables the phone to act as a kind of ticker with the latest news pushed to the handset over wireless application protocol (Wap). T-Mobile is also offering football themed downloadable games, wallpaper, ringtones and videos of classic goals.

For T-Mobile, Euro 2004 presents a golden opportunity to tempt users into upgrading to video handsets. To access the clips, a suitably equipped handset is required. There are only a small number, including top-end Nokias and the newly launched flagship Sharp TM100.

But will punters be impressed by what they see? There remain issues as to whether video over GPRS is a satisfactory experience for the consumer. Picture refresh rates are very low - which can cause blurring and distortion with fast-moving objects. Experiments showing sports videos over GPRS have been disastrous, as the few viewers who took a peek at O2's Rugby Union World Cup video action can testify.

However, T-Mobile points to the improved quality of the handsets. A spokesperson says phones such as the Sharp TM100 are a better vehicle for video because of the higher resolution and richer colour screen. "If you own a video phone already, then £5 isn't much of a gamble."

The story of sports video on mobile in the UK has been dominated by one network - 3. From its launch in March last year, the company has delivered highlights not only of Premiership football matches, but golf, rugby and cricket.

In theory, the extra bandwidth offered by 3G networks should boost the quality of the service. Yet from the outset, the company's service was dogged with controversy. First, the terms of the deal the network agreed with the Premiership meant subscribers had to wait until hours after the game before seeing clips.

There were also problems with the quality of the footage - no small matter when subscribers are paying as much as £2.50 per clip. And, perhaps most importantly, 3 subscribers could only watch clips from a small number of Premiership games.

All that is set to change for the new Premiership season starting in August, following a re-negotiation of rights by 3 and the other networks committed to showing live football via 3G Vodafone.

Both will now show footage from every game, as well as offer clips of incidents and goals, not long after they have taken place. As 3's marketing director, Graeme Oxby, acknowledges: "For a sports service via mobile to be successful, it has to offer live. up-to-the-minute coverage."

So, having invested large sums of money to secure 3G licences, is football on video the technology's killer application - a use that will help networks recoup some of their outlay?

Christopher Nicholson, lead analyst at Oraca, thinks it could certainly help establish Vodafone's 3G services while extending 3's user base.

"The networks are desperate to get people to experience 3G and in football they have a service with strong appeal. It is an obvious pitch to football-loving 18 to 40-year-old males who are not only cash rich enough to view the goals, but are also happy to upgrade their handsets to do so."

In the short term, though, Nicholson thinks that "pricing of the service is everything". "Phone networks are notoriously bad at getting prices right for this type of service," he adds. "If they can stop themselves from being greedy and charge around 50p a goal. it really should be successful."

Not everyone agrees with Nicholson's prognosis. "It is unclear whether football is such a key driver for mobile as it was in pay TV," says Nick George, head of media at A D Little. "People who are really into football find the time to watch it at the ground, or on TV. Mobile might complement it, but user experience will never be as good."

In the early nineties, Sky harnessed football fan loyalty to build a TV network. Whether Vodafone and 3 can pull off a similar trick using goals on the phone remains to be seen. Ironically, a good experience this summer for users of their rival network - T-Mobile - aided by a few high scoring games, will probably help.