Sundowns and Pirates CAF matches on TV this weekend, and not Chiefs

The SABC has announced it has struck a deal to broadcast two CAF inter-club matches involving Mamelodi Sundowns and Orlando Pirates this weekend.

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However, the deal is only for the matches South African teams will play at home, meaning Kaizer Chiefs who travel to Guinea to face Horoya AC will not be on TV.  

Sundowns take on CR Belouizdad on Friday evening and according to the SABC, the encounter will be broadcast live on SABC 1.

The SABC will also broadcast the CAF Confederation Cup match between Pirates and ES Setif on Wednesday, 21 April.

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With Sundowns already in the quarter-finals of the CAF Champions League, their home game will also be shown live on TV.

Chiefs, on the other hand, will only be on TV provided they advance to the quarter-finals. They need a big result against Horoya to seal their place to the Last 8 of the CAF Champions League.

THE STATEMENT

The SABC can confirm that it has an agreement with CAF, via SAFA, to be the host-broadcaster of CAF matches in South Africa. However, this agreement only applies to the home games of the South African teams and not away games.

In this regard, matches will be broadcast live on our SABC Sport channel – available to stream on TelkomONE or via the SABC DTT channel. It must be noted that there are no costs associated with these broadcast rights. One of the key reasons for the games not being aired on TV relates to their weekday 6pm kick off time, which clashes with the SABC 1 drama and soapie slot between 18:00-22:00, which generates substantial sponsorship and advertising revenues for the SABC.

The SABC continues to engage CAF and the respective clubs  to consider an alternative kick-off time, and while they had initially refused to consider changing this for the previous matches, have now decided to change the kick-off times for the remaining weekday matches.

As such, we are pleased to announce that the Friday match between Mamelodi Sundowns and Algerian team CR Belouizdad, and the Wednesday 21 April 2021 game featuring Orlando Pirates vs another Algerian side, ES Setif, will both kick off at 3pm and will both be carried live on SABC 1.

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