Consortium warns against illegal World Cup marketing

The chairman of the Ghana TV consortium, Major Albert Don-Chebe  (retd), has cautioned media houses which have not acquired broadcast rights for the 2014 FIFA world Cup to desist from illegally marketing World Cup broadcast rights they don’t have.

At a press briefing held at GBC in Accra Thursday, representatives of the five TV stations which have acquired the rights to broadcast the World Cup, threatened to place an injunction on certain media houses purported to be advertising the World Cup on their networks.

In a statement read on his behalf by Mr George Lomotey, co-ordinator for the consortium, Maj. Don-Chebe stated that the consortium, made up of GTV, Metro TV, ETV, Net2TV and First Digital TV, is the only distinctive-media group whose members have acquired the TV and radio broadcast rights to all 2014 FIFA events.

Event rights acquired by the consortium include FIFA Under-17 Women's World Cup in Costa Rica, the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil and the FIFA Under-20 Women's World Cup in Canada.

The consortium noted with concern such illegal marketing of these FIFA events by some media houses and warned that legal action would be taken against them.

It stressed that the FIFA World Cup rights were solely owned by the consortium, which prohibits any media organisation apart from the five TV stations in the group from broadcasting the FIFA World Cup or related adverts.

However, the group stated that all independent radio networks interested in broadcasting any FIFA tournament must acquire the broadcast rights from the Ghana TV consortium.