The ugly business of the beautiful game

It is normal for broadcasters to engage, not unlike football players themselves, in bruising exchanges over the rights to broadcast popular games.

In June something happened which then did not seem significant. Multichoice, the pan-African satellite broadcaster, lost most of the rights to broadcast the English Premiership in most of the continent. GTV, a relatively new broadcaster in Africa had somehow snatched possession of the most precious of football leagues from the broadcasting giant. Whether by accident or design that story did not really reach the headlines. What it meant was that there would be no more, "welcome to Old Trafford, home of Manchester United, the "Red Devils", for this bruising encounter with Chelsea, the Blues" on the channel otherwise known for those type of commentaries, SuperSport 3.