"This is remarkable in the sense that we are eighteen months away from the 2010 FIFA World Cup and we can now focus on delivery of the rights and further developing our relationship with the broadcasters," said Jérôme Valcke, secretary general of FIFA.

Nigeria was the last territory in the sub-Sahara region of Africa to sign a 2010 rights agreement with FIFA. The media rights have been granted to the consortium of BON and Optima Sports Management International (OSMI), a prime sports management agency in Nigeria, who will closely collaborate with FIFA in ensuring the widest television and radio coverage of FIFA's competitions, high-quality football television productions and enhancement of FIFA's brand values. The agreement guarantees the nationwide coverage of all 64 FIFA World Cup matches live on free-to-air television and radio in Nigeria.

FIFA has selected BON and OSMI as the partners for this African football powerhouse, based on its capacity to reach the largest possible audience as well as its commitment to support FIFA's institutional campaigns and to broadcast various support programmes tailored for Nigeria.

"BON and OSMI have showed us considerable strengths in uniting the nation's broadcasting community under one roof,to ensure that the Nigerian people will have access to free television and radio coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. With this agreement, we have covered all territories in Africa and everyone on this continent will be able to enjoy the FIFA World Cup on TV," said Valcke.

"This announcement marks yet another major milestone for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, completed well ahead of schedule. It again underlines the interest in and excitement surrounding Africa's first FIFA World Cup. And for us at the organising committee, we're particularly delighted that most Africans will get to see the tournament on free-to-air television," said Danny Jordaan, the chief executive officer of the 2010 FIFA World Cup Organising Committee South Africa.

The agreement goes far beyond the actual coverage of the men's and youth tournaments which will be staged in Africa in 2009 and 2010. BON and OSMI will heavily promote the FIFA World Cup and other competitions by airing supporting programmes of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. BON will further contribute to FIFA's social causes by giving a sizeable volume of airtime slots to FIFA's institutional campaigns.

"For us, this is a ground-breaking deal as it integrates and unites the Nigerian broadcasters under BON for one goal - to have the best free-to-air coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. It is a significant step that all the Nigerian people will be able to watch all the matches of the first FIFA World Cup in Africa," said BON chairman Mallam Abubakar B. Jijiwa.

[28 Nov 2008 09:51]

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