World Cup Pay-Per-View Riles Soccer-Crazed Middle East

SAN FRANCISCO--"The poor man's game is for the rich only." Such is the cry of sports writers across the Arab world these days. From my position monitoring Arab media for a U.S.-based nonprofit, I've watched the fallout from the decision by soccer's governing body to grant exclusive World Cup broadcast rights in the Middle East to a Saudi-financed television network. The result of the deal: Middle Easterners must pay upwards of $500 to view the competition.

Though only two Arab teams, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, are playing in the World Cup, soccer-mania has spread like wildfire throughout the Middle East, as it does every four years. But diehard fans from Morocco to Yemen are furious at FIFA's (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) deal with the Arab Radio and Television Network (ART).

In Algeria, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika gave instructions to the ministry of information to pursue all possible means to convince FIFA to grant Algeria TV the broadcast rights for the games. All efforts failed. Last week an Algeria TV news anchor apologized profusely to the country's soccer fans and consoled viewers that they could at least watch the highlights of 64 games.

Even the European channels, which are popular in Algeria, will be encrypting live match broadcasts according to their own agreements with FIFA. An Algerian fan complained in French, "Shame on French television... how they could do this to us? We gave the French National Team Zenedine Zeidan (known as "Zizou" to the French). Without him, France would not have won the World Cup in 1998."

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