Many soccer-crazed North Africans fear they could miss out on televised World Cup action because of the high fees levied on broadcasts of the event.
With the tournament scheduled to begin on Friday, officials and public TV executives in North Africa have been scrambling to strike deals with a Saudi Arabia broadcaster which has the rights to air the games in the Arab world.
Algeria President Abdelaziz Bouteflika sent his communications minister to Cairo on Monday for talks with Arab Radio and Television, or ART, which holds broadcast rights in the Middle East and North Africa.
In Morocco, a special decoder made available by ART which frees up the World Cup signal costs â,¬130 ($167) — in a country where the minimum wage is the equivalent of about â,¬180 ($231).
Morocco’s Communications Minister, Nabil Benabdellah, told Parliament last week the two national public TV stations don’t have enough money to pay the required â,¬10-million ($13-million) in broadcast fees to ART. Unless an accord is reached, Morocco viewers will see only a 20-minute summary of individual World Cup games.
Harouai Habib Chawki, director of Algeria’s state-run television, said the government is awaiting a response from ART to several financial offers it has made toward allowing for rebroadcasts of the World Cup.
On the streets of Algiers, where soccer is nearly a religion, many Algerians criticised French satellite network TPS for boosting encryption measures to halt piracy of its signal through satellite dishes, which are common in many Algerian homes.
”It’s really frustrating: I was hoping to spend a calm month in front of the television watching the exploits of Zidane, Ronaldhino and Shevchenko” said Adel Acherir, an unemployed 28-year-old who lives in the poor Bab el Oued section of the Algerian capital.
Other Algerians expressed hope that German broadcaster ZDF would make the matches available via satellite — or that hackers will be able to decode the encryption systems in time for the tournament.
Tunisia has arranged to broadcast the national team’s three first-round matches against Saudi Arabia, Spain and Ukraine plus the semifinals and final. But officials have decried the high cost of airing the event.
”It’s urgent to enact laws to protect national teams in North Africa, which are being held hostage by moneymaking calculations,” said Mustapha Khammari, director general of national broadcaster ERTT. ‒ Sapa-AP