China state television has imposed a “blackout” on Premier League football on its main sports channel, in the latest escalation of tensions between London and Beijing.
Liverpool’s victory over Chelsea, followed by the team lifting the Premier League title, was not aired by China Central Television’s main sports channel, which holds the rights to show top flight English football. The game was instead shown on CCTV 5+, a much less watched channel.
Bloomberg reported that the state-run CCTV had removed Sunday’s final round of Premiership matches from its programme schedule. The Liverpool game was also unavailable for web replay.
‘Retaliation against London’
Chinese sources said the move was retaliation against the British government’s decision to ban Huawei Technology from the UK’s 5G network and its opposition to the new security laws imposed in Hong Kong.
China state TV has previously used a sports “blackout” to express discontent over international criticism.
For this coming Sunday, aside from Leicester City v Manchester United on CCTV5+, no PL matches are now scheduled to be broadcast of any CCTV platform pic.twitter.com/8LkT9DJjHf
— Professor Simon Chadwick (@Prof_Chadwick) July 23, 2020
CCTV dropped National Basketball Association coverage after the general manager of Houston Rockets’ Daryl Morey tweeted in support of pro-democracy forces in October 2019.
An Arsenal game was dropped in December after Mesut Özil, a Turkish-origin German and practising Muslim, used social media to condemn China’s treatment of Uighurs.
Valuable market for Premier League
China is the second most valuable overseas market for the Premier League, after sub-Saharan Africa.
Digital match rights for 2019-2022 were sold to pay TV platform PPTV for £550m in 2017. Some of those rights were sub-licensed to CCTV. The deal earned each Premier League club around £9m a season.
Professor Simon Chadwick, a Shanghai-based sports industry specialist, asked: “Is the English Premier League facing being blown off course by its own NBA-style China row?”
Prof Chadwick said the smaller CCTV 5+ channel did have Sunday’s Leicester City V Manchester United game on its schedule.
Tensions escalate
Diplomatic tensions have continued to escalate between the two nations, after Britain suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong in response to a sweeping new national security law Beijing imposed on Hong Kong.
China has warned that dumping Huawei would cost Britain in investment. The Premier League is understood to have sought reassurances that its long-term contractual arrangements in China are not under immediate threat.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/30U1QrV
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