The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is to sue the Premier Soccer League (PSL) for breach of contract after the PSL agreed to sell exclusive television rights to the pay-channel Supersport.
The SABC reported this on Monday.
The PSL announced last week that it had sold the right to broadcast soccer matches to Media24’s Supersport for the next five years for about R1-billion.
The PSL decided to go ahead with the deal despite a pending arbitration process with the SABC, scheduled for next week.
The furore was described by the PSL on the weekend as ”a mountain manufactured out of a molehill”.
PSL chief operations officer Ronald Schloss said: ”The ill-founded assumption that viewing PSL games on TV will now be beyond the finances of the vast majority of South Africa’s millions of soccer fans is simply way off target.”
”Indeed,” he added, ”the exact opposite is the case, with the PSL’s contract with SuperSport stipulating that they must sell a minimum of 140 games to broadcasters operating on a free-to-air television basis”.
Schloss said the SABC had shown little more than 100 TV games live to the South African public last season — ”so, in effect,” he added, ”there will be a lot more free TV soccer viewing for the public than ever before”.
In reaction, various parties said last week that soccer is a nationally important sport with millions of fans.
”How, then, can the PSL justify awarding this contract to a channel … subscribed to by only 9% of South Africans?” asked the Freedom of Expression Institute. ”This effectively privatises soccer so that its access will be mainly to the elite in our country.”
The South African Communist Party echoed this, saying the deal was ”tantamount” to privatisating televised soccer.
”This decision by the PSL is also an act of continuing enrichment of the very same old white capitalist class which owns SuperSport, now joined by a handful of black elites, directly at the expense of the overwhelming majority of our people.”
Most people cannot afford pay-TV and would be denied live television coverage of the sport, said the African National Congress. ”If pursued, this decision is likely not only to disadvantage millions of soccer lovers, but also to have a negative effect on the standing and popularity of the PSL.” – Sapa