SuperSport explains blackout of huge African World Cup qualifiers

SuperSport has explained the reason for the blackout of the past week's African World Cup qualifiers matches for SA audiences.

SA football lovers who rely on and pay SuperSport to watch top-class sport were puzzled when the broadcaster televised the international friendlies of European teams  but not the five huge qualifying games to decide the continent's 2022 Qatar World Cup participants.

Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Cameroon and Morocco will represent Africa at the world showpiece in November after winning over the two legs of their third and final round qualifying playoffs on Friday and Tuesday.

Some fans took to social media to question why SuperSport televised friendly matches between European teams instead of the vital African clashes.

Siya Loyilane, acting CEO of the National Football Supporters' Association, said it was a concern that the games were not televised by the pay channel. She said it seemed strange South Africans could not watch games televised in other countries on the continent and globally.

“It’s concerning because [though SA wasn’t involved] some of players [based in the Premier Soccer League] were part of these games. We would also like to know if the public broadcaster [the SABC] is making an effort to get these [broadcast] rights. As South Africans we need to be able to watch these games on TV,” Loyilane said.

SuperSport senior communications manager Clinton van der Berg said the broadcaster only had the right to televise the Ghana versus Nigeria home and away fixtures in those two countries.

“The only rights made available to us were for broadcast in Ghana and Nigeria. So it was purely a question of what was offered to us. That happens from time to time with broadcast rights,” Van der Berg said.

“And it varies, sometimes, that rights are held within a country and sometimes the rights are held by Fifa.”

According to the Fifa website, the international body opened an invitation to tender in 2019 for the centralised media rights to all matches in the second round of qualifying as well as the third-round playoffs which determined the final five teams from Africa to play at the World Cup in Qatar.

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