Yousef Al Obaidly, the deputy chief executive of BeIN Sport, has played down the French pay-television broadcaster’s interest in rights for English Premier League football but said the company is interested in expanding its portfolio of rights in other sports.
“Today, our weekend schedule is already full of football,” he told the 20 Minutes news website. “I do not think we would be a candidate for the English league but we will look anyway [and determine] if it’s interesting or not. Our football offering is very strong, so we are focusing on how to improve our offering of other sports. We want to have a sports channel, not just football. We already have the [French football’s top-tier] Ligue 1, Champions League and Europa League [the Uefa European club competitions].”
Al Obaidly said that BeIN Sport would be interested in acquiring the next cycle of domestic rights for the Top 14, the top division of rugby union in France, from 2016. The rights are currently held by rival pay-television broadcaster Canal Plus.
“There is a strong interest in the sport in France… [it is] one of the best leagues in the world,” he added. “It would make sense for us to be interested.”
However, Al Obaidly said that the broadcaster had no plans to acquire national team rugby union and football rights as “these rights are for the general public and will always be free [to air].”