The Confederation of African Football (CAF) broke its contract with beIN Sports because it is owed nearly $100m (£80m) by the Qatari media group, a source has told the BBC.
On September 1, CAF unilaterally ended a 12-year contract, worth $415 million (£333m) which ran from 2017-2028, with immediate effect.
While beIN has stated it will “take all necessary legal steps to challenge and overturn” the cancellation, CAF has accused the broadcaster of breaching its contract and instructed its lawyers to recover the outstanding payments.
“BeIN owes CAF $98 million and they have refused to pay for nearly two years,” a source close to the matter told BBC Sport Africa.
“The last time beIN paid CAF was in February 2022 and that was only after CAF threatened to remove beIN’s rights to broadcast the final stages of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON).”
Shortly after the Nations Cup ended that month, CAF and beIN met to resume talks regarding the latter’s concerns about how the rights it purchased had been affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
BeIN has been keen to reduce the total sum of its contract given the Covid-enforced cancellation of two events – the 2020 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations and the 2021 U-17 Nations Cup – it had previously agreed to pay for.
While the Qatari media group is also insisting upon a further reduction to the original deal, given what it calls “Covid’s wider disruption” to the African football calendar, CAF believes the various tournaments postponed by the pandemic were beyond their control.
Given the cancellations, CAF did reduce the total sum – by not more than $2m – but this failed to prompt beIN to fulfil its payments, the source explained before adding that the “door is open” for talks.
One area African football’s governing body may highlight in the dispute is AFCON’s expansion since the deal came into force six years ago.
With the competition growing from 16 teams to 24 from 2019 onwards, an extra 20 games have been added to the finals – meaning an additional 40 matches over the last two tournaments, yet CAF has not asked its broadcast partners for any further payments.
CAF’s Communications Director, Lux, in September refused to be drawn on the above when asked for comment.
In response, a beIN spokesperson agreed that the last payment to CAF was nearly 18 months ago, albeit with a different recollection about its nature.
“We paid a goodwill payment of $32.5m (£26m) in February 2022 during AFCON,” the spokesperson told the BBC.
“Given the nature of our ongoing dispute regarding contractual issues, we could have paid nothing at all. But we did in goodwill – and in the context of investing hundreds of millions of dollars in CAF over more than a decade, and being CAF’s broadcast partner in nearly 40 countries worldwide.” —BBC
