MUMBAI: To the chorus of condemnation against Saudi Arabia headquartered pirate streaming service BeOutQ, which has with state backing been illegally broadcasting the ongoing FIFA World Cup in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), the rights for which are with Doha-based beIN Sports, add world football’s financial powerhouse UEFA.
European football’s governing body is the latest in an growing list of broadcasters and sports rights owners to officially hit out at the bootlegging network that has with impunity been stealing feeds of every game of the ongoing Russia 2018 World Cup and rebroadcasting it onto a MENA footprint via the Arabsat satellite provider.
Pertinently, Riyadh-based Arabsat lists the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as its largest shareholder.
Even as UEFA Thursday joined world governing body FIFA and the Confédération Africaine de Football (CAF) in condemning BeOutQ, it is worth noting that the pirate network’s “footprint” now extends beyond its original mandate of undermining beIN Sport’s broadcasts to also include US-based NBCUniversal and UK-headquartered Eleven Sports content.
UEFA revealed Thursday that the pirate channel illegally distributed the Champions League and Europa League throughout the 2017/18 season.
Earlier on Thursday, UEFA issued a statement on the matter, directly pointing the finger at Saudi Arabia for enabling the operations of BeOutQ.
The statement read: “UEFA strongly condemns all unauthorised broadcasting and illegal streaming activity. We are aware that a pirate channel, named BeOutQ based in Saudi Arabia, has illegally distributed the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League throughout the 2017-18 season, including the UEFA Champions League Final in Kiev on 26 May. UEFA considers that illegal piracy of live football, particularly on the scale of that being carried out by BeOutQ, poses a significant threat to European football.”
UEFA added: “The protection of our Intellectual Property is key to UEFA and we will take the necessary steps to address the issue in order to enforce and protect the rights granted to beIN Sports, including through engaging with relevant satellite carriers in the region.”
UEFA’s strong words clearly raised the hackles of the kingdon’s ruling establishment for soon after Turki Al Alshikh, head of Saudi Arabia’s General Sports Authority, took to Twitter to embark on a lengthy criticism of UEFA, as well as beIN’s place in the sports rights market.
Al Alshikh tweeted: “The UEFA president (Aleksander Ceferin) is trying to meet me, but I am telling him that I do not like to meet men of many faces.
“If you want to meet, you should have a clear stance on fair issues, including the monopoly and politicisation of sports by beIN Sports, which you force us to watch without taking into account the feelings of 30 million Saudi citizens and all the Arab countries’ whose opinions and views had been disregarded.”
UEFA was quick to respond to the intemperate comments, issuing the following tweet on its official account: “UEFA was quite surprised by a tweet of @Turki-alalshikh, as the UEFA president has never heard of this person and he therefore would have no reason to meet him.”
Interestingly, in his series of tweets, Al Alshikh also sought to contrast FIFA president Gianni Infantino with Ceferin, calling the former “a dear friend for whom the kingdom (of Saudi Arabia) and I hold a great respect.”
Insideworldfootball offered some context to Al Alshikh’s praise of Infantino, noting that FIFA’s apparent soft pedaling of the flagrant piracy issue as being linked to the Saudi contribution it is expecting towards the FIFA president’s proposed (but so far rebutted) $25 billion plan for a revamped international calendar – in essence he seems to be prepared to sacrifice the $200 million+ of beIN Sport broadcast rights money for a somewhat vague and so far undefined promise of $25 billion of Saudi-backed cash.
The respected website notes that this is a very dangerous game of brinkmanship to play with rights holders already feeling the pressure of the inflated rights fees and hence for Infantino personally in his run-up to re-election next year. He needs the support of commercial partners to fund his gifting programme to federations who will re-elect him, but he doesn’t need to be branded as the FIFA president who swapped the equivalent of the emperor’s new clothes for the security of established – and fully paid up – broadcast partners.
As one rights holder’s representative told Insideworldfootball: “It is becoming increasingly hard in a fragmenting media marketplace to justify the fees we are being asked to pay. So when there is no protection from the rights seller one wonders that with friends like these, who needs enemies.”
For the record, FIFA’s earlier statement read: “FIFA takes infringement of its intellectual property very seriously and is exploring all options to stop the infringement of its rights, including in relation to action against legitimate organisations that are seen to support such illegal activities.”
The response from BeOutQ to FIFA’s statement was described as “goading” by a spokesperson for BeIN. It said: “Don’t worry – leave us in the driving seat and enjoy the games.”
CAF also criticised the BeoutQ World Cup streams. “An entity called BeOutQ has put in place a major piracy operation against beIN Media Group,” CAF said.
“In this regard, CAF strongly condemns the practice of the audiovisual piracy of sport events, a real scourge for our industry. CAF is determined to take all necessary against BeOutQ if any of CAF matches is pirated.”
To be clear, BeOutQ’s piracy of the World Cup and UEFA tournaments is a product of regional politics. The root of the problem lies in the fact that it is beIN Sports that holds media rights for FIFA and UEFA in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region.
BeOutQ sprung up as an in your face pirating TV station with beIN as its chief target in the wake of the declaration by Saudi Arabia (which its allies, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt rubber stamped) in June 2017 that Qatar was sponsoring terrorism in the region. Following the declaration, the Saudi Arabia-led bloc severed diplomatic and transport ties with Doha and imposed an economic blockade on the Gulf state.
After it launched its blockade, Saudi Arabia banned the sale of beIN broadcast boxes and stopped existing customers from renewing subscriptions. Which is what has led to the tournament not being officially broadcast in the country, despite its team having qualified for the World Cup.
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