For football returns fans around the world, this week would be the start of an awesome and thrilling next 9 months. It’s the time of the year when football leagues start with the English Premier League being the first in line. It kicks off Friday night seeing Liverpool play against Norwich city in the season opener. The leagues in Spain, Italy and France would follow later on but the premier league has been undoubtedly the most exciting one of them.
Being a little specific, there is a massive football community in Pakistan as well. They have linked with the big football clubs giving them an official status of ‘Pakistani Supporters’. However, unfortunately watching football in Pakistan has been very difficult. Initially, PTV got the broadcasting rights from Star sports to get the premier League in Pakistan and Pakistanis were able to watch it on their tv screens. Later on with the dates of cricket tournaments coinciding with football matches led to the channel prioritizing cricket over football. Even cricket analysis were preferred over the airing of football. Similarly, Ten sports also lost their rights to the Champions League, which is another league that involves the top teams from around the world. After broadcasting the league for so many years, it finally called it a day and didn’t renew their rights. This meant that Pakistanis were deprived of being able to watch football comfortably on their TVs. They had to resort to alternate ways which were live streaming on the internet or having the expensive cable dish be installed at your home for viewing. Internet streaming also doesn’t work that well with Pakistan not having the fastest internet to be able to live stream such events with massive online traffic.
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This year, many signed a petition against PTV to start showing premier league football but there is still no word from the channel with regards to any broadcasting promise. At the end, this might sound like a plea, but these are facts and Pakistani football fans are not happy that they have to go through so much just to able to enjoy their favorite sport.
