Qatar Broadcaster Reviews $500 Million Italian Football Deal - Bloomberg:
Plans for a soccer match between Turin’s Juventus and Rome’s Lazio in Saudi Arabia next month have sparked a financial threat from a Qatari broadcaster, one of the Italian league’s main partners, which says the event endorses a country that has been pirating its premium sports broadcasts since before the last World Cup.
Over the past year, Qatar’s BeIN Media has been pressing Italy’s elite soccer league, Serie A, to scrap the matches in Saudi, with whom the league has a $22.5 million contract for three games over five seasons. The first match was held last January.
BeIN now says it will reconsider all its financial agreements with Italian soccer, worth around $500 million over a three-year cycle. The Qatari broadcaster accounts for some 55% of Serie A revenue from overseas rights -- bought via the league’s sports rights agency IMG -- with contracts to show matches in the Middle East, Asia and parts of Europe. The President of the Saudi Arabian Football Federation, Yasser Almisehal, said the government had no involvement in any piracy.
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