SuperSport vs Caf: Kenyan fans to miss out on Stars’ match against Pharaohs
Kenya’s opening game of the 2021 Africa Nations Cup qualifiers against Egypt is among dozens of matches affected by SuperSport’s decision to suspend broadcasting of all Confederation of African Football (Caf) matches until further notice.
Harambee Stars will face the Pharaohs in Alexandria, some 300km away from the capital Cairo, on Thursday and the South African based Pay-TV firm had initially announced this was one of the matches to be televised on its platform.
PROMOS
SuperSport has been running promos for the past week inviting its audience to watch how Kenya captain Victor Wanyama and star-forward Michael Olunga fare against Liverpool’s Mo Salah and Aston Villa’s Mahmoud ‘Trezeguet’ Hassan.
But a statement released by the South African based company explained the matches will not be televised following a decision by Caf to terminate an agreement with French broadcast company Lagardere, which in turn supplies the content to SuperSport.
Other affected matches include South Africa’s games against Ghana and Sudan at the Cape Coast Stadium and Orlando stadium respectively.
DIFFICULT DECISION
MultiChoice group executive for corporate affairs Joe Heshu explained that SuperSport is in a ‘difficult’ position following this decision.
“We are in a difficult position where we cannot broadcast the Caf games when we don’t have a firm contractual arrangement in place. SuperSport previously acquired these broadcast rights from Lagardere,” said Heshu.
Caf maintains the agency agreement signed with Lagardere breached Egyptian competition rules because Lagardere was appointed as Caf’s exclusive agent for marketing and media rights for a 20-year period without open tender.