DUBAI // All English Premier League games starting at 3pm on a Saturday will now be broadcast live, according to presenter Richard Keys.
The football host took to Twitter yesterday to confirm that Qatar-based broadcaster beIN Sports will show all the games across the MENA region after the EPL previously restricted it to showing just one due to piracy concerns.
“At the risk of repeating myself – ALL this w/e’s 3.00 ko’s will be shown live on beIN Sports. ALL of them,” he tweeted to his 217,000 followers.
The broadcaster confused matters on Thursday after releasing a statement that said it would show all the games, before recalling it.
“We are delighted to resume live broadcast of all Saturday ‘18:00 Mecca time’ games on beIN Sports channels,” said Nasser Al Khelaifi, chairman and chief executive of beIN Sports.
“The English Premier League is a primary property and we are very happy to bring back this weekend excitement to our millions of subscribers in the region.”
Subscribers were upset as they were only able to watch one of the 3pm UK (7pm UAE) kick-off matches since November last year.
The broadcasts from beIN Sports were believed to be widely pirated in the UK, despite beIN’s efforts to improve encryption, so the EPL put an end to live broadcasts of all but one of the 3pm kick-offs in the region.
The news was welcomed by football fans in the UAE.
“It’s really good to finally see all the kick-offs,” said Shanil Mehta, a Manchester United fan. “I have been disappointed that we could not see the games here. It will be great to see the games live so there is no worry of accidentally finding out the score when seeing the match later.”
Mike Conner, a telecoms manager and Chelsea supporter, said this was long overdue.
“It was frustrating not to watch the games live and having to watch it later, so this is very good news if we actually get to see the kick-offs this weekend,” he said.
“And what about all our subscriptions that have been wasted since January this year? Does anyone have any news for us about that?,” he added.
There was no comment from beIN Sports or the Premier League.
newsdesk@thenational.ae