CAF have bundled the broadcast rights for all of the African Nations Cup qualifying matches and sold them to Sport5, a decision that has left the Nigeria Football Federation in a bind with its broadcast partners.
Sunday's African Nations Cup qualifying match against Ethiopia was produced and broadcast by the Nigeria Television Authority, a Sport5 partner, but the NFF have contracts with SuperSport for cable TV rights, and AIT for terrestrial rights. Those contracts run until 2015.
At its Congress last month, CAF took a decision to bundle the rights, and national associations were informed that they would be given 'some funding' with no specifics as to what the sharing formula would be and the status of existing contractual obligations.
South Africa, Cote d'Ivoire and Egypt are in a similar situation to Nigeria and all four countries have written to CAF pointing out their existing obligations and the potential penalties.
In Nigeria, SuperSport and AIT are threatening to sue the NFF for breach of contract and all three sets of parties spent most of the days leading to the match locked in discussions on how to find a resolution to the quandary.
NFF officials are particularly miffed that a letter to CAF last week explaining their situation was ignored.
A temporary agreement was reached to allow NTA take the game pending a final resolution before the next set of qualifiers.
Culled from KickOff Nigeria site
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