Bolaji Abdullahi; Nigeria’s Sports Minister said on Friday that efforts are being made to ensure the live telecast of the African Cup of Nation matches so that Nigerians can watch from the comfort of their homes.
With the tournament beginning Saturday the 19th of January in South Africa no better news can come the Nigerians who are die-hard football lovers as there’s been so much worry over the broadcast as the rights are yet to be acquired.
The minister who made this promise at a Media Round Table with the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) in Lagos said it was unfortunate that the country had found itself in such a difficult situation.
Concerning the broadcast rights, the minister berated those who were in charge of the rights negotiation saying they didn’t act on time.
“They ought to have acted much earlier’’.
“Why this is just coming up now two days or so to the Africa Cup of Nations? It’s unfortunate that we have found ourselves in this situation but I must say also that it is more a matter for the Ministry of Information than to the Ministry of Sports.
“But we’ve tried to assist, got NFF to even write a letter to them and I got a preview on Thursday but I’m still optimistic that something would happen because negotiation still continues.
“But that’s the situation, we shouldn’t find ourselves in this situation in the first place and that if we envisage this crisis, the people who have responsibility to ensure that Nigerians watch the competition ought to have risen long before now.’
“The Honourable Minister of Information was actually the first person that mentioned it to me that there are issues about broadcast rights but wanted me to speak with CAF.
“I spoke with some of my contacts in CAF and they said, look, CAF has no issues with it, they’ve sold the rights to LC2 and that LC2 has the right to do whatever the like with the license they’ve got.”
