The Single Telecommunications Union (SUTEL) made public a letter presented to the Board of Directors of the National Telecommunications Administration (ANTEL) where they expressed, among several points, their concern related to the transmission rights of the last three friendly matches played by the Uruguayan football team in which they were not participants in the marketing.
The Uruguayan soccer team played, in preparation for the Qatar World Cup
2022, three friendly matches against the teams of Mexico, USA and Panama.
In this context, Sutel recalled that for more than 8 years, with few exceptions, ANTEL included as a corporate strategy the expansion of its portfolio of products and services through the transmission of the Olympic Games, the soccer qualifiers, as well as the World Cups, friendly matches, and other relevant sports competitions.
“However, we are aware that the call to interested parties made by the AUF, to market the transmission rights of the aforementioned friendly matches, established conditions that excluded our company from the bid, generating unfair competition on the part of the AUF. AUF against ANTEL, being us one of its main business partners”, they expressed.
Said expression of concern is motivated by the actions of the company linked to the rights of
transmission of the last three friendly matches that directly impact the platforms of
content transmission (Vera TV and Vera+), “which we have defended so much because they position ANTEL as a cutting-edge company with a positive differential over our competitors.”
Sutel resumed a speech already made, where they highlight the latest technology to face massive television without transmission cutoff problems, “as if they have happened in the last three games in which we were not involved in the marketing.”
Content Delivery Network Services
In turn, they stated that they were unofficially informed that Antel commercialized with AUF, among others, the services of “Content Delivery Network” (CDN) for a value greater than $4,000,000 plus VAT, for the three indicated parties.
“Consequently with the purposes of SUTEL, always in defense and concerned about the survival of our company, we ask the ANTEL Board of Directors to inform us of the following:
- If there were negotiations between the authorities of AUF and ANTEL to finalize the contracting of the television rights of the friendly matches referred to above;
- If indeed ANTEL sold to the AUF technical services (CDN), or others, to transmit said matches. If so, report their value;
- Inform if the current Board of Directors of ANTEL abandoned the company’s consolidated strategy in terms of broadcasting the matches of the Uruguayan soccer team through its platforms; content that is of high impact, and about which we must be internalized as it is a sensitive issue for our union and consequently for the entire population.
