South African football fans are in danger of missing out on Bafana Bafana's 2023 Africa Cup of Nations campaign.
South African football fans are in danger of missing out on Bafana Bafana's 2023 Africa Cup of Nations campaign after MultiChoice announced on Wednesday that it would not be broadcasting the tournament, which starts next weekend.
With the African showpiece set to take centre stage in Ivory Coast, MultiChoice released a statement confirming that SuperSport would not televise the tournament on South African screens.
This, after a failure to secure the broadcast rights.
“SuperSport Channel will not broadcast the Africa Cup of Nations 2023 scheduled for January 13 to February 11, 2024, because the channel has not secured the rights to broadcast the tournament,” the statement read.
“However, Afcon 2023 games will be available through our partner broadcast stations on Free to Air (FTA) channels”
“MultiChoice Africa remains committed to ensuring that football fans across Africa continue to enjoy unrivalled access to entertainment and football games available on DStv and GOtv platforms, including the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Zambian Super League and many more of football’s most prestigious competitions.”
SuperSport has come under fire in recent months following its failure to televise the African World Cup qualifiers, CAF Champions League and CAF Confederation Cup in West Africa where they have a substantial hold on the football broadcasting.
It remains to be seen whether Bafana matches will be available to the SABC as the official rights partner to Safa.
Although the public broadcaster has a standing agreement with Safa, it is still required to acquire rights for away matches, just as it did for Bafana’s 2-0 Group C World Cup qualifying defeat against Rwanda in Butare.
Independent Media contacted Safa, which referred all questions and queries to the SABC.
The public broadcaster was also reached for comment but requested time to formulate a statement and did not respond to this publication by deadline on Wednesday.
Bafana, coached by Hugo Broos, kick off their campaign on January 16 against Mali.
South Africa won the tournament in 1996 to be crowned champions of Africa.
Cape Times
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