The football league committee of FFIRI has agreed to the request by Channel 3 (Sports Program) to change the kick-off time of two matches involving Iran’s two most popular clubs Esteghlal and Persepolis, as IRIB did not want the matches played in the Persian Gulf league to clash with the Euro 2020 live broadcast.
In most countries, such requests are normal and mostly accommodated, because the chunk of football revenue that ends up in the clubs’ coffers are due to the TV broadcast rights. IN Iran, it is unique. IRIB is known to be the biggest debtor of football and does not pay a single Rial for broadcasting football matches on its channels.
Television broadcast rights all over the world are the biggest source of income for professional clubs and can be more than 50% of their total income. This explains how freely the English clubs spend money to buy players or how the 24 Championship clubs participate in the heaviest league in the world to advance to the English Premier League with its riches due to the Broadcast rights. With the large amount of money awarded to the clubs, not only the English Premier League can afford to buy the most expensive players, but a significant portion of their revenue is invested in the development of the young players, training facilities, and stadia. This automatically helps in raising the standards and making English football one of the most competitive. Switch to any TV Sports pay channel, and there is a good chance that it carries the English Premier League, where the TV station has to spend around 350 million pounds for a season for such rights.
The same applies to the Splansh La Liga, The German Bundesliga and the Italin Serie A.
What is happening in Iran regarding football matches broadcasting?
In Iran, the situation is quite different, and not only does the official and the sole broadcaster IRIB has a monopoly on radio and television broadcasts but also does not pay anything to the football federation and the league organization to broadcast domestic football competitions.
It has also been known that IRIB even demands payment from clubs to broadcast their games. These are games other than Persepolis or Esteghlal which IRIB does not think it is viable commercially. The broadcast organization IRIB (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting), is directly under the control of Ayatollah Khamenei. Not only it does not pay the domestic football matches broadcasting, but it also refuses to pay for broadcasting international competitions and illegally broadcasts many games on its channels. This practice has been going on for many decades.
Now, however, IRIB, with complete impunity and arrogance, has the audacity to demand changes in the league program to suit itself rather than the Premier League competitions and the FFIRI obliged. The issue begins when the federation announced on Monday in a news item that because of the Channel 3 network requirement to broadcast the Euro 2020 semi-final games, it asked the league organization to change the kick-off time of Esteghlal-Trakctor and Foolad-Persepolis games, which was immediately approved by the league organization.
It was incredible that the Football Federation and the League organization agreed to the demands of IRIB, while IRIB has not bought the broadcast rights for Euro 2020!!
The audacity of IRIB is beyond belief. Because it does not report to the government and is under the control of Ayatollah Khamenae it makes its own rules, publishes inaccurate and misleading information, while always seemed immune from prosecution under the country’s laws unlike any other media outlet in Iran. Of course, there is no expectation from a broadcaster that does not apologize for any of its big and small mistakes.
While common sense says that the FFIRI should object and turn down these demands because of the refusal of the official broadcaster to pay broadcasting rights, the opposite has happened!!
Azizi Khadem regularly mentions IRIB in good terms and goes as far as thanking the head of the Radio and Television Organization at every opportunity he gets! We still remember how Azizi Khadem, board members of FFIRI, and management of Team Melli paid a courtesy visit to Ali Asgari the President of IRIB four days before the trip to Bahrain to award IRIB the title of the “twelfth man of Team Melli” and gifting him a Team Melli Jersey with No. 12 printed on it!
Amazing how things work in Iran. While IRIB persistently refuses to pay for broadcasting matches of Team Melli and the league, while the same organization makes millions in advertising revenue during the televising of these matches, while for decades the FFIRI management demanded its rights from IRIB and was turned down and even threatened, this Management or Azizi Khadem in particular, is giving IRIB a seal of approval for violating international norms and laws and recognizing Iran’s football biggest debtor as the “twelfth friend”! This indicates how rotten is the system of governance in FFIRI as Az=izi Khadem is looking beyond Presidency of a football federation at the time when he will be kicked out of his office and will be looking for a new job.