Comesa watchdog hits Qatari broadcaster, CAF with $600,000 fine

Competitions watchdog of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) on Thursday slapped a fine of $300,000 each on Qatari sports broadcasting giant beIN Media and the Confederation of African Football (Caf) for breach of competition regulations, a decision that has far reaching implications for wheeler dealers in the lucrative market for sports content.

Significantly, the commission also ruled that no single entity will be allowed to purchase all the broadcast packages.

“Caf shall offer the various media rights as separate, commercially viable packages on a platform neutral basis,” said the chief executive of the Comesa Competitions Commission (CCC), Dr Willard Mwemba.

Dr Mwemba said the watchdog had established from investigations dating as far back as 2017 that agreements entered into for the commercialisation of media rights of football competitions organised by Caf violated Article 16 of the Commission’s regulations.

The agreements gave exclusive media rights to beIN to broadcast all Caf organised football competitions, awarded in a non-open tender process and excessive as they were likely to result in significant prevention and distortion of competition on the African continent.

The decision is expected to create an open bazaar for companies to bid for media rights, ending bickering between the lesser affluent broadcasters that are denied access to the signal when the richer networks buy exclusive rights to televise football competitions.

Football completions like the ongoing Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) in Cote d’Ivoire, as well as the club Caf Champions League and the African Championships (Chan) rake in millions of dollars in advertising revenue.

Last year, Caf President Patrice Motsepe revealed that the soccer body posted commercial revenues of $125.2 million – a significant increase of $21.6 million compared to the previous year and explained that commercial revenues were largely driven by a jump in sponsorship deals and broadcast rights.

In 2017, the CCC initiated an investigation against Caf in relation to agreements concluded with third parties to commercialise rights under competitions overseen by the soccer governing body.

Two years later, the watchdog issued notices of investigation against French sports marketing agency Lagardere Sports and beIN for deals entered into in 2014 and 2016 to own broadcasting rights of football tournaments under the Cairo-based Caf.

“Certain provisions of the beIN agreements were in violation of Article 16 of the regulations,” Dr Mwemba said, and ordered that all media rights awarded under these deals cease on December 31 2024 and that Caf awards future media rights on the basis of an open, transparent and nondiscriminatory tender process.

It also established that the agreements were disproportionately long with competitions held annually or every two years, which left other players out in the cold, and increased the likelihood of market foreclosure.

The Commission also ruled that Caf will not award new exclusive rights within the bloc, with a duration period longer than four years unless under justifiable circumstances that will only be cleared by the regional watchdog.