Major football leagues are continuing to work together on the issue of piracy of rights-holder material in the Middle East. FIFA, the AFC, UEFA, the Bundesliga, LaLiga, Lega Serie A, LFP and the Premier League have issued a statement following the publication of an investigative report into the operations of beoutQ.

“As rights holders of globally followed sports events, whose intellectual property rights have been breached on a systematic and widespread basis by the pirate broadcaster known as beoutQ, we have commissioned a leading industry body, MarkMonitor, to conduct research and produce a detailed and independent technical analysis of beoutQ’s operations.

The report confirms without question that beoutQ’s pirate broadcasts have been transmitted using satellite infrastructure owned and operated by Arabsat.

The contents of the report are today being published in full on the rights holders’ websites to provide transparency about the facts of the case and to demonstrate the seriousness with which we, as global rights holders, view this issue.

As previously communicated, we have been frustrated in our attempts to pursue a formal copyright claim against beoutQ in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and, while we have received reports that beoutQ transmissions are currently disrupted, we nevertheless call on Arabsat and all other satellite providers to stop (and going forward agree to refrain from) providing a platform for piracy, which harms not just legitimate licensees, fans and players but also the sports that it abuses.

Cutting off its access to transmission services would be a major step in the fight to stop beoutQ. We all, individually and collectively, remain committed to bringing an end to international sports piracy.”

Read the forensic investigation here.

BeoutQ pirates all of the output of Qatar-based BeIN Media Group, including sporting fixtures for which it holds the rights for most Middle East territories.

According to the New York Times, BeIN has been a loss-making enterprise since its inception, but it said the loss of access to the market in Saudi Arabia, its region’s biggest, was the reason it eliminated hundreds of jobs — representing about a fifth of its employees — in June. A rival network in the Gulf, OSN, has withdrawn from all sports broadcasting except cricket, with its officials blaming piracy as a key factor driving the decision.