By Mike Parrott
The takeover of Newcastle United from Mike Ashley to Amanda Staveley and a Saudi Arabian consortium has inched closer to completion after Saudi Arabia agreed to crackdown on sport broadcasting piracy in their Country.
The much-delayed sale of Newcastle United was pushed further towards fruition after Saudi Arabia had vowed to stop sports broadcasting piracy. The acquisition of Newcastle by a Saudi Arabian consortium fronted by Amanda Staveley had stalled due to this.
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The World Trade Organisation had strongly disagreed against the purchase of Newcastle after it was revealed that Saudi Arabian sports broadcasting companies didn't have the sufficient licensing to broadcast sporting events such as the Premier League, Wimbledon, and La Liga.
The Official Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property rights announced:
"Within the framework of the Kingdom's efforts to reduce violations of the right... we aim to block 231 websites that violate intellectual property regimes, with a view to shutting them down."
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"Those violating sites included a group of violations, which are sites that download and watch movies and series without obtaining a prior authorisation from the right holder, direct broadcast sites for encrypted sports channels without obtaining a prior license from the right owner... and the sites selling subscriptions and servers of TV channels encoded through IPTV."
The statement also threatened prison to people who continued to break the new rules enforced by the Saudi government.
"The commission emphasised that these practices violate the copyright protection system and entail financial penalties and fines that may amount to 250,000 Saudi riyals, the closure of the violating site or the cancellation of the commercial license, and in some cases it amounts to imprisonment for a period not exceeding six months or defamation at the account of the infringer and removing the infringement."
Topics: Football, Premier League, Newcastle United
