Fifa, Uefa in fresh call for Saudi action on pirate channel

PARIS: Fifa, Uefa and several of the world’s top football leagues on Wednesday renewed calls for the Saudi government to crack down on alleged piracy of television rights by the ‘beoutq’ network.

Fifa and Uefa were joined by the English Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, the German Bundesliga, Italy’s Serie A and the Asian Football Confederation to “collectively condemn in the strongest possible terms the ongoing theft of our intellectual property by the pirate broadcaster known as ‘beoutq’.

They also called “on the authorities in Saudi Arabia to support us in ending the widespread and flagrant breaches of our intellectual property rights taking place in the country”.

The collective have been working since May 2018 to monitor and compile evidence against beoutq, whose broadcasts they said were “regularly and on an industrial scale made available on an illegal basis”.

“Following thorough analysis by technical experts of how beoutq operates from a technical perspective, we are satisfied that beoutq is operating specifically to target customers in Saudi Arabia and is utilising the facilities of at least one Saudi Arabia-based entity.”

The collective have been unable to find a Saudi law firm willing to act on their behalf. “As copyright holders we have reached the conclusion, regrettably, that it is now not possible to retain legal counsel in Saudi Arabia which is willing or able to act on our behalf in filing a copyright complaint against beoutq,” it said.