SABC not taking blame for Bafana saga

The SABC says French broadcaster Sports Five reneged on an agreement they’d made minutes before the Bafana game.

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THE SABC on Monday blamed a French broadcaster for its failure to show Bafana Bafana’s crucial African Cup of Nations qualifying match in Niger, saying it had tried its best to broadcast the game.

Sunday’s blackout of Bafana’s 2-1 defeat had angry fans turning to Twitter to vent their anger.

They also relied on the social site twitter for updates on the game.

SABC spokesman Kaizer Kganyago said: “The company, Sports Five, is a French company, and was still saying on Sunday that they were not budging on the price of R5 million for the live broadcast of the match.

“I personally went on SABC1 at around 3.15pm (on Sunday) to inform viewers. And (Sports Five) then contacted us immediately and said they would drop their price – to less than half. “We said ‘Fine, we will take the feed’,” Kganyago said.

“We had to rush, because the game started at 4.20pm, (and) we were standing by in the studio to take the feed.

“We kept on waiting, but it never arrived.”

He said the match footage would have had to be sent from Niger to France, then back to South Africa.

Kganyago said when the footage had finally arrived, the game was over, so the SABC had told Sports Five that it could no longer pay a live footage fee, and the parties had again deadlocked.

“We did our best,” Kganyago said.

“BAFANA” was a trending topic on Twitter on Sunday night because South African fans were livid that the game was not being screened by public broadcaster SABC.

 

Last night the SABC came in for a pasting on Twitter, as soccer fans tweeted angrily throughout the game, slamming the national broadcaster.

Just before the game, the SA Football Association tweeted that the SABC had secured the rights to screen the game – but this was not the case, and some people tweeted that they had stayed tuned into the broadcaster’s channels in the vain hope of catching the on-field action. – Cape Argus

Source: http://www.iol.co.za/sabc-not-taking-blame-for-bafana-saga-1.1131525

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