CAIRO: The Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) will file a lawsuit against Al Jazeera Sports Channels for violating a contract on World Cup broadcast.
ERTU says Al Jazeera interrupted the transmission of the England-United States World Cup game for 10 minutes on Saturday and made false allegations against the Egyptian Satellite Company NileSat, according to ERTU head, Osama El-Sheikh, in a statement released on Sunday.
During the World Cup 2010 inaugural match between South Africa and Mexico on Friday, technical disruptions had occurred on Al Jazeera.
In a statement issued late on Friday, Al Jazeera Sport, which has exclusive broadcast rights of the event in the Arab world, said that transmission was deliberately jammed on the NileSat and Arabsat satellites and that the channel will identify and pursue those responsible for this "act of piracy," said managing director Nasser bin Ghanem Al-Kholeifi, according to a report by Agence France-Presse.
ERTU’s El-Sheikh said that Al Jazeera Sport was “annoyed” at the success ERTU made in marketing the World Cup matches, which brought in nearly LE 120 million in profits and that Egyptians preferred watching the match on terrestrial television than on Al Jazeera Sport for a high subscription fee.
“Al Jazeera is punishing Egyptian viewers and advertisers. Egyptians are not thieves or highwaymen; we are gentlemen and professionals. We do not want to spoil the fun of Egyptian and Arab families watching the World Cup,” said El-Sheikh.
This is not the first feud between ERTU and Al Jazeera Sports Channel. Last January a dispute occurred over the broadcast of the African Cup of Nations matches.
Al Jazeera had set terms of agreement for ERTU to broadcast the matches which El-Sheikh referred to as “ridiculous.”
The terms of agreement obliged ERTU to pay $10 million for the rights to broadcast only 10 of the Egyptian national football team matches. The terms also prohibited the broadcast of re-runs of those matches or adding local commentaries to them.
