The Premier League, which declined to comment on Wednesday, cancelled the contract with PPLive, part of retail group Suning, last month after just one season, in a blow to its revenue.

Filings at the Commercial Court in London showed the Premier League was claiming $210 million, which it alleges that PPLive failed to pay by March 1, 2020 when payment was due, plus a further $2.7 million due for a clips package and an additional $2.3 million to cover compound interest.

A source close to Suning said the Chinese broadcaster was taking its own legal action, adding it had paid half of the contract, despite being only a fifth of the way through it.

PPLive had unsuccessfully sought to renegotiate terms of the deal, which was valued at $700 million for three years including the 2019-20 season, the source added.

The deal was struck during the peak of Chinese interest in international soccer and marked a huge increase on a previous deal to screen matches in China.

The Premier League has since agreed a broadcast deal in China for the 2020-21 season with digital platform Tencent.

Although the world's wealthiest league has been able to weather the coronavirus crisis thanks to lucrative broadcast deals, clubs have taken a big financial hit in having to play matches behind closed doors.

Premier League chief executive Richard Masters told the BBC last month that a failure to allow fans back as soon as possible would cost member clubs 700 million pounds in lost revenues in 2020-21.

($1 = 0.7770 pounds)

(Writing by Alan Baldwin; Additional reporting by Pei Li in Hong Kong and Kirstin Ridley in London; Editing by Alexander Smith)