Football fans across the Arab world paid the price for what seems to be a hidden war between the Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) and Al-Jazeera Sport, the official broadcaster of the World Cup. Pinned to their chairs with their eyes glued to TV screens, hundreds of thousands of football lovers in Egypt, UAE, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia were frustrated during the World Cup opener as the broadcasting signal suffered technical problems. Nobody has seen it coming as they watched the opening ceremony for almost two hours untroubled. But nearly 10 minutes into the first-half between South African and Mexico, TV screens started to repeatedly blackout for several minutes. FilGoal.com news room received tens of calls and users posted comments from different Arab countries, all asking about the reason behind the unforeseen disturbance. "It's a deliberate act and we will take legal action against whoever is responsible for it," Al-Jazeera content director Hisham Al-Khalsi said without elaboration. "They are pirates but Al-Jazeera will never be their victim. "Although we have no hand in this sad incident, we apologize to the viewers and subscribers and promise we would do our best to ensure it won't happen again." A statement ran across the screen during the second-half saying that the source of the problem was Egypt's satellite NileSat and advising the viewers to switch to ArabSat for a clear and undisturbed transmission.
large parts of the opener were missed by Arab viewers Why Egypt? Al-Jazeera is believed to be pointing fingers at Egyptian officials, particularly because the signal on Egypt's Nile TV didn't encounter any problems. The Qatari channel has initially announced that all the matches of the month-long event would be offered only on cable. According to this statement, ERTU paid Al-Jazeera EGP 120.000 million to obtain the rights to broadcast 22 games on Egyptian terrestrial channels. Advertising slots were sold and famous football analysts were brought in as Nile TV promoted itself as the only free-to-air channel to show the World Cup. But Al-Jazeera, surprisingly, decided to put some of the World Cup game free-to-air. They didn't announce which games would be available to unsubscribed viewers but sports marketing experts say that these games are likely to be the same sold to Egyptian TV. A top source in ERTU told FilGoal.com that they will issue an official statement in response to Al-Jazeera claims.
