SABC general manager for sport, Gary Rathbone, is hoping sanity will prevail after revealing that they are trying to reach an agreement with SuperSport for the national broadcaster to show the CAF Champions League final.
It has been announced that SuperSport have the exclusive rights to broadcast the highly anticipated final between Soweto giants Kaizer Chiefs and Al Ahly, to be played in Casablanca on Saturday, July 17. According to Rathbone, the SABC was in talks with CAF for the rights to broadcast the final, but SuperSport stepped in and beat them to it.
SABC is now hoping they can reach some sort of agreement with pay-TV SuperSport before the final.
"Because we did not want to let this lie (down), we took this up as far as the SABC board. It went up to ministerial level. We went to DStv to see if we can cooperate on this. We reached out to CAF again to try find a way. Both parties were just not interested. I trust sense will prevail and SuperSport will understand that the approach is not in the right spirit of things and that they should work with us to make sure the whole nation actually gets access to this game. We have been reaching out to them all week and they have said no. We are tired of being undermined in this kind of way by people who are not concerned by what the vast majority of South Africans need," Rathbone told the Siya crew.
"We are just flabbergasted because we have been covering the Champions League games up until the final stage. We were expecting that CAF would work with us to make the game available on the SABC.
"Initially we would have got the home game as part of the original deal we had with CAF. But because the game was switched to a single final match at a neutral venue, that obviously changed the situation. We were prepared to make an offer to CAF and we began our negotiation process with them and then during the process we were informed that suddenly they have done a deal with SuperSport. This is despite the fact that we had gone as far as matching the fee that they said they were expecting from us, which was beyond what would be expected for the rights to a single game. For the amount they were asking for, I could actually buy a whole season of a decent football league. Despite that, we were still prepared to meet that fee because we knew the value of this game for South African fans. If we had to break the bank for this one, then we were going to do it because it's important."
The Siya crew got in touch with MultiChoice for a comment, but said they would release a statement on the matter later today.
View images of Chiefs jetting off to Morocco:
