The South African Football Association (Safa) has complained that it was not consulted about the compilation of a list of events to be broadcast by free-to-air channels only.
This emerged during the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa’s (Icasa) hearings in Johannesburg into sports broadcasting rights.
The national rugby and cricket associations echoed Safa’s complaint.
Safa CEODanny Jordaan said limiting the broadcasting of the association’s major events to free-to-air channels would compound the financial strain on soccer.
He said Safa was not generating revenue from the SABC and that the broadcasting by the public broadcaster was of poor quality.
The submissions follow the discussion paper on the inquiry into broadcasting rights in which the SABC, e.tv and Supersport (M-Net) agreed on a number of free-to-air sporting events.
”The list of sporting events in the discussion paper is wide, broad and too ambitious,” said Jordaan.
Icasa said the inquiry was started after complaints from the public that they cannot view major events because they are televised on pay channels.
”There is a low percentage that we get from television rights and this does not help us in any way as there are always challenges, like exorbitant players’ fees,” said Jordaan.
Only 39% of South African soccer followers own TV sets, with 83% relying on radio coverage. Jordaan said the SABC was not prepared to pay for radio broadcasting rights, which affected soccer’s revenue.
Safa vice-president Irvin Khoza said: ”Radio has depressed the value of soccer whereas the SABC is making money out of radio rights through sponsorships.”
In August the SABC bought, for R500-million, the exclusive rights to televise Premier Soccer League (PSL) games for five years. The CEO of the PSL, Trevor Phillips, said: ”The PSL is running short of R15-million annually to run its business. It’s essential to have competition on broadcasting if the game is to be driven forward.”
Sporting events listed for free-to-air broadcast by the three broadcasters in the discussion paper are the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games, parts of the African Cup of Nations and the soccer, rugby and cricket world cups.
The three broadcasters agreed that all international games played by the three major sporting codes’ senior national teams should be available free-to-air. The Coca-Cola Cup, BP Top 8, Charity Cup, Currie Cup, Vodacom Cup, Supersport Series and Standard Bank competition would also be broadcast free-to-air.
TV rights put R161-million into the coffers of the South African Rugby Football Union last year.
Gerald Majola, CEO of the United Cricket Board, said: ”We would like to see cricket being excluded from the list of events that will be made free to air. A free-to-air corporation like the SABC does not have enough time to televise cricket because of the long interruption of programming.”
Icasa will consult the ministers of sport and recreation, and posts, telecommunications and broadcasting before releasing a position paper next year on which sporting events are of national interest and should be broadcast on free-to-air channels.