The Albanian Football Federation (FSHF) has terminated its media rights agreement with domestic over-the-top streaming platform Oversport and started legal proceedings against the company due to its repeated failure to pay fees stipulated in its contract.
The move comes less than a year after Oversport secured a clean sweep of broadcast rights to domestic club soccer in the country, running from 2022-23 to 2024-25, from previous rightsholder DigitAlb, the pay-TV broadcaster.
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The rights included all matches from the top-tier Kategoria Superiore, second-tier Kategoria e Parë, the Albanian Cup (Kupa e Shqipëisë), and Albanian Supercup (Superkupa e Shqipëisë).
The move has left the FSHF seeking a new domestic broadcast partner.
In a statement, FSHF said: “Despite all the efforts of the Albanian FA to restore the cooperation with the company, Oversport repeatedly abused the trust given by the FSHF.
“The FSHF feels obliged to the fans and consumers in general, to inform them of this news, assuring them that it will make every effort to ensure professional and honest television broadcasting of its activities.
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By GlobalData“in the meantime, the FSHF will start the legal procedures regarding the restoration of the damages caused by the company in question for the non-fulfillment of obligations stipulated in the contract signed between the parties at the beginning of the last season.”
The FSHF said the broadcaster had stopped paying the fees stated in its contract from January and has “never given all the guarantees it was committed to in the contract.”
It added: “The production and telecast of national competitions has been beyond any technical standard and has directly affected the operation of the Video Assistant Referee system. Likewise, the editorial stance and journalistic contributions have been outside the requirements of the contract and in many cases even in violation of public morals or the sensibilities of different social groups.
“For all these cases, Oversport has been notified and warned many times, most recently in May 2023 (only last month), when it was given a deadline to fulfill its obligations until 31 May, resulting in the termination of the contract.”
Oversport only began broadcasting in 2021 and also holds rights to Italian soccer’s top-tier Serie A in Albania and Kosovo until the end of the 2023-24 season. It is also covering the Scottish Premiership until the end of the 2024-25 season.
DigitAlb, which runs the SuperSport channels, holds rights to Albania’s national team matches, as well as German soccer’s top-tier Bundesliga, Spain’s LaLiga, France’s Ligue 1, and the English Premier League.
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