Football Organizations Call for Action Against beoutQ

FIFA, UEFA, the Bundesliga, LaLiga, the Premier League, Lega Serie A and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) have issued a joint statement condemning piracy operation beoutQ.

“We, the rights holders of various football competitions, collectively condemn in the strongest possible terms the ongoing theft of our intellectual property by the pirate broadcaster known as beoutQ and call on the authorities in Saudi Arabia (KSA) to support us in ending the widespread and flagrant breaches of our intellectual property rights taking place in the country.”

The statement says that the football bodies have been working with legal counsel “to monitor and compile evidence against beoutQ, whose broadcasts are regularly and on an industrial scale made available on an illegal basis.”

The organizations had been seeking legal representation in Saudi Arabia. “As copyright holders, we have reached the conclusion, regrettably, that it is now not possible to retain legal counsel in KSA which is willing or able to act on our behalf in filing a copyright complaint against beoutQ. We feel we have now exhausted all reasonable options for pursuing a formal copyright claim in KSA and see no alternative but to pursue beoutQ and a solution to this very serious problem of piracy by other means.”

The statement continues, “We have welcomed previous statements by the Saudi Ministry of Culture and Information and the Saudi Government against beoutQ. However, given the scale of beoutQ’s piracy in KSA and that the piracy continues unabated, we request that the Ministry and the Saudi Government take swift and decisive action against beoutQ.”

Read more about the battle against beoutQ here.