Lionel Messi is leading Argentina’s title defence. Their arch-rivals, Brazil, are waiting to settle a score. But Calcutta can see none of it.
Copa America 2024 is off-air in India. No channel is broadcasting the tournament in India. No app is officially streaming it. The no-show has left millions of football fans seething.
“This Copa might well be Messi’s swansong. I was hoping to see him lift one more trophy. Instead, I am having to watch match clips from random links long after the match. This is ridiculous,” said Srijeeb Mukherjee, who works with a PSU bank and is an avid Argentina fan.
On Friday, Argentina began the defence of their Copa America title with a 2-0 victory over Canada. Messi was not quite at his sublime best but showed glimpses of his brilliance.
The previous Copa America in 2021 — that the La Albiceleste won beating Brazil, a year before their talisman led them to World Cup glory in Qatar — had been telecast on the Sony network in India and was also live-streamed on the SonyLIV app.
The battle for football supremacy in South America is coinciding with that in Europe. The Euro Cup is being broadcast on the Sony network and live-streamed on SonyLiv app.
Copa and Euro happened together in 2021 as well. The same network had then shown both tournaments.
“I clearly remember watching the Copa final and the Euro final, hours apart, on the same network. European football probably fetches a lot more money for broadcasters. That is why they are biased,” said Rajdeep Sarkar, another Argentina loyalist.
Sarkar, like many other fans, managed to watch the opening game on a third-party site by using a private virtual private network (VPN). “I came across the site after a frantic search. I missed the first 30 minutes of the game,” he said.
Many fans expressed dismay and anguish on social media. A chunk of it was targeted towards FanCode, an OTT streaming service that shows many sports events. Especially because FanCode had issued “match passes” for Copa in the run-up to the tournament. The passes were bought by people who were not regular subscribers of the platform but wanted to watch Copa.
“This is pathetic from @Fancode, after doing all the promos and making us buy the Copa America tour package and then leaving the streaming just 3 days before the kickoff,” a man posted on X.
A FanCode spokesperson blamed “circumstances beyond our control”.
“We tried till the very end to get broadcast rights for Copa America 2024. However, due to circumstances beyond our control, we couldn’t secure the rights and get all the action for our users. All fans who had pre-purchased a pass for the tournament will be refunded and we’ve already started the same. We will continue working for Indian sports fans and enable them to access top class events from across the globe,” the spokesperson said.
The Copa is organised by the Conmebol, the South American Football Confederation. The organisers hire agencies for media rights for different places across the globe. The agency handling media rights for South Asia then gets in touch with broadcasters in India and neighbouring countries.
Sources in the industry said the “securing rights were not closed in time for India”.
But they also said that the European Championships were a bigger draw than Copa.
“In India, the telecast of Copa matches begins early in the morning. Whereas the Euro games start in the evening and late at night. Not only are the Euro timings more convenient, the tournament itself is a better draw for football lovers in India. The Copa is only about Brazil and Argentina. But the Euro Cup has several formidable teams. Thanks to TV and the Internet, the English Premier League is a household name. The Spanish and German leagues are also extremely popular,” said a representative of a broadcaster.
“Latin American football had a large fanbase in south Asia but only in Bengal, Kerala and Bangladesh,” he said.
