The SABC has dismissed reports that the national broadcaster had lost rights to host Bafana Bafana matches.
The South African Football Association and the SABC have met at the SAFA House in Soweto to discuss media reports that the rights to Bafana matches have already been sold to a competing broadcaster.
SAFA and the SABC say they have a long-standing partnership and the public broadcaster has moved to dismiss fears that national games will be lost to the majority of South Africans from 2015 onwards.
SABC’s Chief Operations Officer, Hlaudi Motsoeneng says: “We are glad we have resolved the matter. It is true that those were just allegations from newspapers. We from SABC we want to have a long relationship with SAFA. People should know that we are talking about sport of national interest. Most of the time when we negotiate we bear in mind that we cater for our own audience and sport of national interest is key for SABC.”
Motsoeneng says the SABC would like to see all sports of national interest broadcast on its platform.
He says the SABC has a wide outreach and should be the platform to broadcast Bafana matches.
“It is only the SABC who reach more than 26 million daily. So it is important that we as the SABC we make sure those rights are within the SABC. We are going to compete with other broadcasters, but our view is that those sports of national interest should be broadcast on SABC platform.”
—SABC
