CAIRO: Angry football fans have demanded refunds and canceled their beIN Sports subscriptions after the Qatari broadcaster suddenly stopped showing matches from Serie A, Italy’s top-tier league.
Online fan groups for big Italian clubs such as Internazionale, Lazio, Milan and Juventus have been inundated with complaints.
“I feel like beIN stole my money,” Tarek, a Milan fan in Egypt, told Arab News. “I renewed my subscription at the beginning of June when the new calendar of Serie A was announced, and I was not notified by beIN that they would stop airing it.
“As a result I missed my team’s win against Lecce and I am very frustrated and disappointed.”
Serie A was suspended in early March because of the coronavirus pandemic. It resumed in mid June, with 12 rounds of 10 matches remaining to be completed. BeIN Sports, which is thought to be in financial difficulty, is believed to have demanded compensation for disruption to its schedules, and been rebuffed.
The company said it had suspended Serie A broadcasts “for legal reasons,” but fans bombarded the beIN website with complaints that the explanation was inadequate.
“I’ve been a customer of yours for several years but I am canceling my subscription, I feel disgusted with your poor service,” Mohammad from Syria wrote.
The Juventus FC fan group on Twitter said: “We demand that beIN explain the Serie A broadcasting issue. We subscribed to watch Serie A, and we demand compensation.”
Lazio4arab, another prominent fan group with thousands of followers, posted: “You pay money to watch your favorite championship, they take your money and yet you are not allowed to watch what you love. Who can compensate the viewers?”
Angry football fans show red card to beIN Sports
https://arab.news/8gnrb
Angry football fans show red card to beIN Sports
- Subscriptions canceled, refunds demanded after Qatari broadcaster suddenly stops showing top-tier Italian league
Brilliant Bodo/Glimt beat Sporting Lisbon 3-0 in Champions League last-16 first leg
- The Portuguese side showed a glimmer of attacking intent to start the second half but it was quickly snuffed out
STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN: Another stellar display on their artificial home turf at the Aspmyra Stadium gave Norway’s Bodo/Glimt a 3-0 win over Sporting Lisbon in the first leg of their Champions League last 16 tie on Wednesday.
The Portuguese side joined the long list of big-name European clubs that have made the journey to the little fishing town inside the Arctic Circle and came away empty-handed as Bodo romped to an easy victory on the night that puts them in the driving seat for a spot in the quarter-finals.
Luis Suarez blazed an early chance over the bar for the visitors but after that their hosts took over, and they went ahead just after the half-hour mark after Giorgos Vagiannidis bundled over Sondre Brunstad Fet in the box.
After a VAR check, the midfielder confidently stroked home the penalty he had won to give his side the lead.
The hosts were 2-0 up by the break, and though there was a slice of luck involved as Jens Petter Hauge’s through ball deflected into the path of Ole Didrik Blomberg, there was nothing lucky about his superb finish from a tight angle to double his side’s advantage.
The Portuguese side showed a glimmer of attacking intent to start the second half but it was quickly snuffed out.
Bodo should have gone three up in the 55th minute after the ball pinged around in the box before eventually going out of play, with defender Jostein Gundersen heading the resulting corner straight at the keeper.
In total control of the game, Bodo grabbed the third goal their efforts deserved when Danish striker Kasper Hogh rounded off another fairytale effort, stealing between two defenders to deftly steer Hauge’s low cross from the left into the net from close range in the 71st minute.
The 3-0 win, Bodo’s fifth straight victory in the competition, leaves Sporting Lisbon with a mountain to climb in the second leg, which will take place in Lisbon next Tuesday.
“It was fun to play again, a fantastic round of 16 game — we still have a long way to go, but the result is fantastic. It will be an exciting week now ... we are halfway there, we know that things can change quickly in football so we have to be at our best again on Tuesday,” winger Hauge told Norway’s TV2.
“They (Sporting) are a good team with many good players, but we are also a fantastic team, we have shown that many times now.”
