Dubai: All UAE-based sports television channels have unified to boycott the purchase of rights for live coverage of the Gulf Cup football tournament that starts in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Thursday.
Media rights company MP & Silva reportedly offered an initial quote for Gulf Cup telecast rights to the Dubai and Abu Dhabi Sports channels for $8 million (Dh30 million), compared to the $3 million paid by both channels for the rights to last year’s edition in Bahrain.
“The Dubai Sports Channel offered a final price of $5 million to MP & Silva and they did not even bother to reply to our letter. So two days back we all decided to boycott the purchase,” Rashid Al Amiri, General Manager of the Dubai Sports Channel, told Gulf News.
Al Amiri said television channels in the Gulf are classified on their annual budgets, with Abu Dhabi and Dubai in Class A and Sharjah in Class B with the likes of Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain and Yemen.
MP & Silva is an international media rights company based in London with 18 offices around the world. The company manages sports TV rights for a range of international sporting events and distributes around 10,000 hours of programming to some 500 broadcasters globally.
Al Amiri said: “The problem is not with the rights company but more with the organisation of the event itself. The Fifa World Cup in Qatar is still eight years away and everyone is aware of the rights issue. But here we have a tournament that is starting in two days’ time and no one is even aware of what is happening.
“When they first sent us a quote, it was for $8 million. Two weeks later they sent us a fresh letter saying that the rights can be bought for $15 million. None of us have been able to understand the rationale behind this.”
Football fans in the region will still be able to watch the Gulf Cup matches live on free-to-air channels operated by beIN Sports, Al Kass, Saudi Sports, Kuwait Sports, Bahrain Sports and Oman Sports.
When contacted by Gulf News, etisalat said that its eLife Sports customers can watch the games on beIN Sports and Al Kass for free as those channels are included in the eLife package. Other eLife customers can subscribe to beIN Sports for Dh78 per month.
Du said its subscribers can watch on beIN’s free-to-air channel, which is available on channel number 512.
— With inputs by Naushad K. Cherrayil, Staff Reporter
