By David Gold
September 20 – Confederation of African Football (CAF) President Issa Hayatou has signed a contract with Italian company B4, who are closely associated with French organisations Lagardère Sport and Sportfive, for the sale of centralised television and marketing rights to the African World Cup qualifiers.
Qualifying begins in November for Brazil 2014, and CAF published a statement on their website to confirm the deal.
“The contract rights include the television/media rights and the marketing rights for each of the qualifying matches of the FIFA World Cup, in Brazil 2014,” said the statement.
“A minimum of 10 advertising boards will be exclusively reserved for the member associations.
“Moreover, and in consideration for the full respect of the television production requirements of CAF, the Host Federation and the Host Broadcaster will be entitled to broadcast each Home Match live, free to air by terrestrial means only.”
The deal was originally agreed in May and Hayatou believes that it will be a boost to smaller countries, allowing them to get international exposure.
“[It will allow] less privileged countries an opportunity to expose their matches on international platforms, considering the challenges facing some African countries in putting on an up to standard TV production.”
The contract is worth at least $23 million (£14.7 million/€16.8 million), and the announcement that host nations and broadcasters will be able to show games live on terrestrial TV free of charge could lead to opposition from some nations.
Egypt for example claim to make $5 million (£3.2 million/€3.7 million) per match alone, and other bigger countries may believe that the deal limits their ability to generate TV revenue.
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