Recognizing the complexity of the sport’s rights market and the soaring rates applied in recent years, as well as the increasing phenomenon of monopole and encrypted broadcasting in the Arab region,
the Directorate-General submitted a comprehensive proposal to the meeting of the Arab Standing News Committee and the Council of Arab Information Ministers on the occasion of the July 2017 Session held in Cairo, and requested the Council to adopt the proposed memorandum. In its Ordinary Session held in May 2018, the Council of the Arab Information Ministers took a landmark decision that includes the following elements:
Following discussions, the proposal was circulated to member corporations for their feedback on the legislative and technical aspects of the document. The proposal was again presented to the Arab Media Standing Committee in December 2017.
Finally, the Council of Arab Information Ministers issued, in its ordinary session of May 2018, a historic and landmark decision that included the following items:
- Ensure the right of Arab citizens to follow national, Arab and international sports events, in which local and national teams and individual athletes take part on free-to-air and unencrypted TV signal, regardless of whether the rights are owned in an exclusive or non-exclusive manner.
- The list of major national, Arab and international events that are protected includes:
- Arab football clubs and national teams championships
- Arab sports tournaments
- African football championships (national teams and clubs)
- Asian football championships (national teams and clubs)
- Fifa Football World Cups
- The Olympic Games.
- Call on Arab countries to enact legislation at the national and regional levels to protect Arab viewers and listeners and enable them to follow the events identified by the Council of Arab Information Ministers .
- Highlight the right of national media outlets to request terrestrial TV broadcasting within country borders and invite international TV and radio sports rights holders that figure on the list prepared by the States concerned to respect the public's right to watch these events free of charge.
- Call upon the Arab countries and ASBU to conduct a large-scale awareness campaign involving the Arab media and the Arab public to disseminate knowledge of their legitimate right to have access to major sports events, be they national, Arab or international, by means of a free-to-air and unencrypted signal.
- Call upon the national and Arab sports federations to support the right of the Arab citizen to gain access to major sporting events, be they national, Arab or international, by means of a free-to-air signal, as is the case in different regions of the world.
- Call upon the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States to notify all relevant Arab and international bodies (FIFA, the European, Asian and African Football Associations) of these resolutions so as to ensure implementation by each of them, within their respective remits
- Entrust ASBU with drafting, enacting and enforcing legislation at the national and regional levels drawing on the lessons learned from around the world and the region.