After weeks of suspense, the country can rejoice today with the news that our long forgotten national television, Tele Liban, will broadcast the FIFA World Cup, set to begin in Brazil in just a few hours.
After months of kissing Qatar’s ass once again, our government officials have succeeded in procuring this wonderful gift upon the Lebanese populace. No, you won’t have to pay any Liras to watch your favorite team attempt to win that cup. How awesome is that? How privileged are we to have a government care for us so much that they had no problem in begging Qatari princes for the rights to broadcast the World Cup for the entirety of this country free of charge?
How privileged are we that our government had no problem in making sure the company that procured the rights for the World Cup in Lebanon gets royally screwed over just because we simply refuse to pay?
Thank you Qatar once again. Thank you Qatar for providing us with jobs. Thank you Qatar for building our bridges, putting asphalt on our roads, investing in our infrastructure, funding whichever parties agree with your politics and making sure we remain in the sports loop. How can one not be thankful for that?
Unpopular opinion over here, but watching the World Cup is not a right. It’s a privilege. It’s sad that our government has worked tirelessly to secure the World Cup when we have so many more important things they should be working for. But we’ve never been a country of priorities. What we have been for a long time, however, is a country built on begging, read شحادة.
We’ll know tomorrow how it feels to watch yet another World Cup we begged to watch. Mabrouk everyone. And mabrouk Tele Liban – you will become the “it” TV of every Lebanese for the next 30 days. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Update: According to new reports, BEIN Sports has not granted Tele Liban the rights for the World Cup. This is becoming a ping-pong game if you ask me.
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A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares 
Ma badda hal2ad
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while i agree with the point you’re trying to make about priorities, i strongly disagree with many things you said on the other hand. Yes we have bigger fish to fry in Lebanon than watching the world cup, and yes we have many problems, and yes our government worked hard and begged to get the world cup for free. But who are you to tell me that watching the world cup is a privilege? Is it suddenly beyond our rights to have the world cup broadcasted in our country? The problem is with the system, not with where our rights reside, and for your information most european countries have made it free of charge for their citizens to watch the world cup on their national televisions, the only difference being that they paid for it while we had to take it as a gift from Qatar, but i’d rather see that than some private greedy broadcasting company sucking our blood to make profit. Bl 3arabe: hek hek l dawle mch m2amnetelna chi, ma3le yetbahdalo chway kermelna:)
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The World Cup was going to be broadcast in your country either way, regardless of whether Tele Liban got the rights or not. The only difference was that more people would have to pay to actually watch it, and as you know Lebanese aren’t ones to pay for things they believe should come for free (aka piracy of books, music, movies, etc.).
For your information as well, European countries don’t have national TV stations to have governments procure World Cup rights. In France, TF1 has the rights. TF1 is not owned by the French government – they paid for those rights and French people have to pay to get TF1.
I don’t get how difficult that concept is to grasp but it seems it is. So while I get accused of being an undercover agent for who knows what, fighting for capitalism and whatnot, I will remain adamant that yes watching the World Cup is not a right that the government should procure to its citizens and the sense of entitlement that Lebanese people are showing towards the matter is quite frankly unacceptable.
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you mentioned a very exclusive example which does not represent all european countries, go check your facts before you speak with that tone. And nobody accused you of anything, it’s just a discussion, and i made my point. To be honest, the fact that you’re somehow linking a free world cup broadcast to piracy is rather invalid. The rights were paid, but just weren’t paid by the people. I see no problem, everybody’s happy and a service is provided for free.
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TF1 is totally free in France despite being private.. but you have like 10 minutes of advertisements before the match and 15 minutes during the 15 minutes half time that’s it… Also TF1 is broadcasting only 28 of the 64 world cup matches so people have to pay if they want to watch all matches.
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The world cup is tomorrow mish today
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This post is ridiculous… I don’t get it, you are sad, that some media outlet did not pay for the right of broadcasting football matches, a right that would allow them to charge anyone anywhere to watch football matches? Forcing venues to charge 50x on drinks to pay for the right of broadcasting? Killing the very sense of healthy competition ?
Only logical reply to this is that you must be part of that media outlet in one way or another. This is the only explanation for your outburst.
The Qatari government in an effort to boost the financial situation of our national television has done this. And your sad why? Because Qatar did not lower your monthly electricity bill?
and as for:
“Unpopular opinion over here, but watching the World Cup is not a right. It’s a privilege. ”
This alone, for me at least, discredits you, your blog and this article. I will not comment any further, and not give attention to your ignorance.
I jut hope this country is ridden from individuals like you, who strive for their own best interest.
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Hi man. I’m a medical student, not a business man. But thank you for appalling you so much you want to get rid of me. The country will be so much better I’m more than 100% sure.
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i think the article is not talking about the right to watch the world cup. it’s just a point of view of someone who still have some dignity among a bunch of ass kissers that still think they’re pheonix descendants and don’t even have a clue about their rights or their duties
Anyway, well said for whoever wrote it
and WS. i was really disappointed when you opened your heart widely and expressed your hope for the future of the country after saying “i will not comment any further”. i wonder why didn’t you stop commenting any further? please stop commenting any further! i beg you to stop commenting any further (since you don’t have a problem with begging!)
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Hi Elie,
I agree with you on so many things and love this blog for many reasons.
However I do not blame Lebanon here AT all. I blame Qatar and Al Jazeera.
Al Jazeera bought the rights to air the FIFA WC in the Middle East many years ago and for many years. They then decided to charge exponential amounts to viewers to watch. In many ways they can do what they want but the World Cup is the one moment when nations like ours come together to watch a great game
People who do watch forget about all the other issues that are tearing apart a country and concentrate on a sport that unites Billions of people around the world.
Most of the other countries provide this from their tax bills and pay for the rights (straight to FIFA) and the amount is NOT that high. it’s a decent amount, from what I hear Qatar was asking for 5 million dollars for Lebanon alone!! that is insane.
There are two problems here, Al Jazeera is trying to make profit from the people of all countries and not the governments. and the second problem is why FIFA allowed the rights to be sold to one country in the Middle East.
Look here this wikepedia shows that each country can negotiate with FIFA directly and not have Qatar come and take away that right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_FIFA_World_Cup_broadcasting_rights
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Pingback: Congrats Lebanon, We've Successfully Begged A World Cup | A … | Respect Lebanon
Go f yourselfs lebaneese creatures you are the joke of the entire goddamn planet, stop trying to cover your f**** weakneses by being more stupid and try to build your strenght instead!!!, idiotsss
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Yourselves* Lebanese* weaknesses*
If you want to insult someone please learn how to spell before!
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Jessica y don’t u fix ur lebanese ideology instead of correcting my grammar errors. I knw what i wrote 😉 grammar errors are underlined in red.
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wow a moron that acknowledges he’s a moron. That’s new. Anyway no need for all the fuss, the begging didn’t seem to work and TL didn’t get the WC. And though it is legitimate for BeIn to charge on pay per view events, why are they allowed to sell the lebanese a service without paying tax to the lebanese government? Isn’t that a crime punishable by the law? I’m asking a question not confirming if it’s legal or not, the way I see it they owe us des monnaies and not the other way around, we should make them pay taxes for selling a product in lebanon just like any other product.
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