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THE ONGOING bruising piracy battle between Qatari pay-TV giant BeIN Sports and BeoutQ took a new twist with the Qatari broadcaster calling on Italian football authorities to reconsider its decision to allow Saudi Arabia to host today’s Italian Supercoppa.
The move failed and the match being played between Juventus and AC Milan will kick off tonight at the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium in Jeddah as planned.
The station says BeoutQ’s widespread piracy operation has affected a variety of BeIN’s flagship sports properties, with the channel stealing coverage of the Fifa World Cup, the Uefa Champions League, Formula One, global tennis tournaments and various other events.
FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, said in July that it was taking legal action in Saudi Arabia against BeoutQ, with various other bodies calling for the channel to be shut down.
The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) became the latest governing body to condemn the pirate network last week, with BeoutQ accused of illegally showing coverage of every game thus far from the ongoing Asian Cup competition.
BeIN has also faced legal challenges. Two cases were filed accusing the sports network of monopoly which prejudices the rights of viewers in Kuwait.
The cases consider that anti-trust laws criminalise monopoly practices and encourage fair competition. The network is also accused of forcing viewers under subscription contract to buy bouquets as part of other packages and pay an extra amount of money.
Bahrain’s football fans have also been disappointed that they couldn’t view the regional competition on free view TV. “It seems such a rip-off, even my friends who have subscribed for years were really angry over having to pay more for Asian Cup coverage,” one disappointed fan told GulfWeekly.
The Saudi authorities has permanently revoked its licence and the General Authority for Competition (Munafasa) fined the channel SR10,000, with the obligation of returning all the gains it had reaped through an alleged violation of its rules and regulations.
GulfWeekly’s sister newspaper The Gulf Daily News reported that Bahrain backed the Saudi media ministry’s categorical rejection of Qatar’s allegations.
The Information Ministry denounced the accusation levelled at Riyadh-based satellite operator Arabsat ‘without evidence’, affirming that Arabsat was not subject to the Saudi government’s administration, and that it is a semi-governmental body owned by the Arab League.
It rejected claims of political intention connected to the Arab quartet in the Qatar dispute. It asserted its understanding of the reasons behind the Saudi ban on beIN Sport – a subsidiary of Al Jazeera Media Network – due to the ‘involvement of Qatari channels in supporting terrorism, as well as promoting sedition, hatred and extremism in the region’.
The ministry condemned the propaganda campaign against Saudi Arabia and the deviation of beIN Sport from its discourse during the broadcasting of last year’s World Cup with the aim of defaming Saudi and other Arab countries. It has continued during the Asian Cup.
