Asian Football Confederation (AFC)

Phil Lines resigned this (Thursday) morning as media-rights adviser to the Asian Football Confederation, hours before the bid deadline for the AFC’s global rights. 

Next week’s first-round bids for Asian Football Confederation commercial rights are expected to see an unprecedented level of competition between all major sports-rights agencies.

The Asian Football Confederation’s media and marketing rights tenders – sent out earlier this month – do not cover the Middle East and North Africa, TV Sports Markets has learned.

Asian Football Confederation media rights in the Indian subcontinent are likely to remain steady or fall in value, with no deal in place for the 2017 to 2020 cycle.

The Asian Football Confederation said this week there were three main reasons why the value of its media and marketing rights would increase in the next cycle.

The Asian Football Confederation Executive Committee has agreed on a strategy to launch an open tender for its next cycle of rights from 2020.

Chinese retail giant Suning’s sporting subsidiaries are filling gaps in the country’s media-rights market left by the retreat of streaming operator LeSports.

The Asian Football Confederation ends nearly two years of speculation and confirms the extension the World Sport Group agency negotiated to its existing deal is dead.

Commercial broadcaster Nine will pay between A$3.5m (€2.4m/$2.7m) and A$4m for free-to-air rights to the Australian national team’s remaining 2018 World Cup qualifiers.

Asian Football Confederation rights have increased in value by 86 per cent in South Korea after cable-television broadcaster JTBC outbid the country’s free-to-air cartel.

The value of Asian Football Confederation rights doubled in Thailand after a renewed deal with commercial broadcaster BBTV.

The Asian Football Confederation has signed an exclusive rights deal with South Korean cable-television broadcaster JTBC.

Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa, the president of the Asian Football Confederation, is planning to set up an ad-hoc committee of experts to evaluate the AFC’s options for its rights beyond 2020.

A victory for Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa in Fifa presidential election could have major repercussions on the sale of Asian Football Confederation media rights.

The Asian Football Confederation will enjoy a huge increase in the value of its rights in China in its new deal with Le Sports.

Le Sports has acquired rights for Asian Football Confederation events in a deal that has given the Chinese internet company a 20-per-cent stake in the Lagardère Sports agency’s Asia-focused division.

The Asian Football Confederation is set to conclude a fresh eight-year contract with commercial rights partner the Lagardère Sports agency, according to Reuters.

The annual congress of the Asian Football Confederation, which took place this week in Bahrain, was ostensibly a political event - but a whole range of media-rights issues were under discussion.