“Watching World Cup soccer may not be a basic human right. But leaders across the world recognise that a lot of people view it as such, and that makes the World Cup a political opportunity. In Thailand, a military junta that seized power this spring persuaded a private company – which had planned to air only 22 World Cup games free – to expand that number to all 64 matches. The new leaders called it a strategy to ‘return happiness to the Thai people’. In countries that agree on little else, there is agreement that World Cup games ought to be freely viewable. The list of countries where the 2014 World Cup appeared on public or state television, or free on network television, includes Russia, England, Portugal, Venezuela, Ecuador, China, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, Greece, Switzerland and Poland. Even countries that didn’t qualify, including the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Bulgaria, all agree that public broadcasters ought to televise free World Cup games.” But in Singapore, he wrote, any calls for the authorities to step in to help bring World Cup games to homes over free-to-air channels were dismissed as populist, anti free-market heresy. And yet, considerable public funds were spent to provide free screenings at community clubs and sporting venues when it became clear how popular doing so would be, after soccer fever hit Singapore in early rounds of World Cup, noted Mr Fernandez. “All that public expense would have been better used to allow more people to watch the matches at home with their families and friends,” he lamented. In this regard, Mr Fernandez is asking MDA to “rethink” the whole matter again. He said, “It (MDA) has four years to put things right to prevent a repeat of a situation where over-zealous private competition leads to runaway bids and fees, which result in the public having less access to World Cup games than they did before media liberalisation.”
Posted on: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 00:13:42 +0000
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