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Why the prejudice against the region?

Come June 11 and we will be the only region that is paying to watch the World Cup soccer matches.

The allotment of television rights for World Cup football in the Middle East has run into controversy with ART bagging the “exclusive rights” for the 2010 and 2014 events, allegedly in contravention of stated FIFA policies which encourage free viewing for all of them to enjoy, especially those who are not affluent. This has been the grass root policy.

And apart from the fact that the Saudi-based ART has assigned the alleged rights to Qatar’s Al Jazira Sports Channel, the rights of the Arabs in free viewing of the world’s premier soccer has been undermined.

The FIFA Distribution Policy is designed “to make sure that football does not suddenly become the exclusive preserve of the wealthy, who can afford luxuries like paid TV channels”.

Yet, only those in the Middle East who could afford to purchase ART smart cards have watched the 2006 World Cup finals and the same situation is likely to occur for the upcoming 2010 and 2014 World Cup telecasts after ART’s announcement that it had bought exclusive Middle East rights for the two events.

In this case, only those from among the 200 million-strong who can afford ART and recently Al Jazira subscription will be able to watch the two championships.

In September 1996, FIFA had signed an agreement with its television partners, keeping out pay-per-view television. The letter read, ‘FIFA will ensure that the public is able to watch the World Cup without paying specifically for the privilege.”

Yet, having bagged the rights, ART has even said that there is no force on Earth which can make them re-sell these rights to free channels, including the government-owned TV stations.

Unfortunately, Fifa has done nothing to safeguard its distribution policy for the last seven years.

The ART president Saleh Kamel defends their stand by saying that football is a “luxury” and doesn’t fall in the same line as the “basic” needs the government needs to provide to the public.

FIFA had said earlier, “Public broadcasters, such as those which belong to the international consortium with whom FIFA works for the 1998 World Cup, may acquire rights to the 2002 and 2006 World Cups.”

However, ART has once again isolated the Union of Arab Broadcasters by declaring that there will be no free viewership of football in the Middle East. And that is sad. Very sad.

hisham@khaleejtimes.com