TELSTRA is preparing to withdraw from its sponsorship of the Docklands football stadium that currently bears its name.

The Age believes that the communications giant has decided against renewing its massive naming rights sponsorship for the Telstra Dome when the contract expires in 2010.

Telstra is also trying to extricate itself from the contract earlier if possible.

Sports consultancy firm Gemba has been charged with finding a new sponsor to take over the contract and replace Telstra's name above the stadium door.

A spokesman for Telstra said last night that the company did not respond to rumours. "We have a contract in place until 2010 and we are locked into that contract," he said.

But The Age believes that Telstra is so keen to get out of the deal that it is seeking other potential sponsors who are willing to take over the contract. The company's sponsorship of Sydney's former Olympic stadium is also to be dropped.

Gemba Director Rob Mills confirmed the company was advising Telstra about its stadium sponsorships but said that advice was a longstanding arrangement. He would not comment further.

In 2002 Telstra spent $100 million to secure naming rights to the Docklands stadium as well as the former Olympic stadium in Sydney, Telstra Stadium.

The Age believes that Telstra executives now think a costly signage deal is not the "best fit" for such a large pool of marketing money. More targeted campaigns about products and services are likely.

In another development, the AFL was criticised yesterday by The World Association of Newspapers, which accused the league of restricting foreign news publications from photographing AFL games.

"We strongly hold the view that the AFL's decision to curtail editorial media coverage for the 2007 AFL season is a dangerous erosion of independent and impartial press coverage," the association said in a statement.

The sticking point is the right to sell images to news publications that are not represented at games. That contract was awarded this year to AFL Photos, which is based in the same offices as the AFL and run by Geoff Slattery, a friend of AFL chief Andrew Demetriou.

They argue that smaller and international publications must rely on a source of pictures that could be censored by the AFL.

That criticism was rejected last night by AFL spokesman Patrick Keane who said AFL Photos was "completely separate" from the league and denied the AFL would censor images.

The Press Council of Australia said yesterday: "There has got to be a difference between commercial exploitation of sporting events and the legitimate need to report news from those events".