Israel will make a free broadcast of the 2018 FIFA World Cup to their Arabic-speaking neighbors for the first time. The said broadcast will have a commentary in Arabic language, covering the most significant football event that will take place in Russia.
Israeli Broadcasting Corporation (Kan) has said to broadcast the matches for free via satellite and in Arabic. This halts the Qatari monopoly when it comes to World Cup coverage, which has been costly for a huge number of Middle Easterns.
Qatar’s beIN Sports TV channel covers the World Cup games in Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt, alongside requiring each household a payment of $45 to watch the World Cup in Arabic. In contrast, IBC (Kan) spent $7.8M to acquire the advertising rights of the World Cup coverage and air the games for free, as reported by Egypt Independent. With the expensive cost of watching football matches, fans will in turn take the free broadcast.
Many fans residing in Egypt will not likely let this year’s FIFA World Cup matches pass, for the reason Egypt joins the event for the third time only. The last one was almost 30 years ago.
Although this could be a bold and positive move on Israel’s side (and a bad rep for Qatar), the Egyptian TV anchor Ahmed Mussa expressed that, “There’s no difference – Israel and Qatar are both enemies for me.†Mussa alerted viewers that Israel might transmit uninvited messages via their free broadcast.
Will Arab football fans welcome Israel’s free coverage of the World Cup? That we have to find out in the coming months.