It would appear 5he shit has hit the fan
I’ll put this here.
Qatar has TV Rights for MENA and pay a lot for them (BeIn Sports).
Saudi had a row with Qatar and “pirate streams” appeared in Saudi under the BoutQ name.
Saudi want to buy Newcastle and lavished the we are nice people PR.
They couldn’t get around Pirated TV though. EPL & UK Gov it was a step too far.
Saudi couldn’t do anything official as that would admit liability for piracy.
So gradually BoutQ has been blocked, starting with Satellite then online.
Still there is a problem. Saudi should be seen to play the TV rights game & pay, yet 90%+ of viewers in Kingdom expect to watch for free - the TV rights cannot be monetized.
Saudi couldn’t let Qatar based/owned business operate, so we got this
Saudi Arabia bans beIN Sport from broadcasting in country - http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/53409479
The question remains what next? Many journeys think it is the opposite of what EPL demanded. Cannot see how takeover of Newcastle can now go ahead.
“Sources” believe the opposite. It is a face saving step to compliance.
Having banned EPL TV Saudi can now send one of the holding companies out into the general market to buy an official “bare feed” and establish their own commentary box/studio.
Expensive both for the rights & setup costs.
Once done, they will be compliant. Qatar is on the way to being outbid for the next round of TV Rights.
And the takeover of Newcastle can be completed.
“Sources” imply this shows the seriousness of that bid and the funds involved. It will be a copycat Man City build up and now FPP is binned.
Qatar? Well they lose TV rights in time for their World Cup.
Equally they are having trouble with their airspace rights for Qatar Airways. ICAO just won a court hearing against Saudi, Egypt Bahrain & UAE. So they have retaliated and now threaten Air force interdiction of any QR aircraft entering their airspace.
Which will make it harder and more expensive to actually get to their World Cup.
FFP hasn’t been binned, the rules will be tightened up and any loopholes (such as time constraints) will be closed.
We have a league whereby City have to cheat to futher themselves, Norwich deliberately don’t do so and get relegated and Bournemouth who will go bankrupt if they go down.
FFP is a load of bollocks, the only way to make it better, fairer and more exciting is a minimum number of squad players in the match squad, salary cap and the quota of a certain amount the British players in the 1st team squad.