Comment by gaiagraphia
16 hours ago
I wonder what pressure Qatar put on France to force this through?
BeIn is owned by the Qatari state, who just so happen to own Paris St Germain.
Their owners Yousef Al-Obaidly and Nasser Al-Khelaifi (for both the network and the club) are outspoken about piracy and 'the damage it causes football and creative industries'.
They've also been in and out of court a fair bit on corruption charges, and seems they've paid their way out of trouble through fines. Seems just last month a new case opened:
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20260920-psg-president...
Nation state meddling, dodgy characters, corruption and greed is more of a threat to football than a DNS resolver, tbh.
Sam Ellis of SearchParty just did a video on UAE on the same premise: they own ManCity F.C. and have considerable influence over the UK government. The current UK prime minister also happens to be the former mayor of Manchester.
video link: https://youtu.be/fUrNOVjWUVM?si=koBbVj67CxfMhncC (skip ahead to the second half of the video).