The South African Football Association (Safa) took a dig at the SABC’s decision to broadcast English Premier League games, but not Bafana Bafana’s.
The SABC announced on 21 August that it has brokered a deal to broadcast live matches on SABC 3 every Saturday afternoon from 4pm, and will start with the London derby between Arsenal and West Ham United on 25 August.
READ: SABC to show live EPL games
The decision shocked many given the SABC’s current financial state. The notational broadcaster is seriously cash-strapped and as a result, they took the decision not to broadcast Bafana Bafana and Banyana Banyana matches on its television stations, after failing to reach an agreement with Safa.
The SABC also failed to negotiate broadcast rights with the Premier Soccer League (PSL) to broadcast matches on its radio stations earlier in August.
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Despite the SABC’s claims that the move to broadcast the EPL is to try to turn the media house around, many have hit out at the public broadcaster decision to prioritise international football over local football.
The decision clearly did not go down well at Safa, with the Bafana Bafana Twitter account posting a tweet, that has since been deleted, with a screenshot of a TimesLive headline that read ‘SABC too broke to broadcast Bafana matches but has money for English Premier League’ and added the caption ‘Make your own judgement!!’.