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Chinese media company StarTimes has canceled its sponsorship deal with the Football Kenya Federation’s Premier League.
The association at the moment does not exist because the Government of Kenya has disbanded it over various allegations against the Nick Mwendwa-led administration.
The broadcasting group announced they have decided to pull out of the the seven-year deal because of many contractual breaches.
In a statement sent out by StarTimes, they have cited unannounced postponement of matches, bringing the name of the company into disrepute among others for the decision.
Title sponsor BetKing also pulled out towards the end of the 2020/21 season.
The following are the reasons the company has given;
– Failure to deliver a number of scheduled broadcast fixtures: Despite prior confirmations, several fixtures including one Mashemeji derby in the 2020/21 season were not delivered.
– Frequent changes to confirmed fixtures: We have had to work with an unstable fixture that has constantly changed, at times on short notice. This has led to lack of cohesion and promotion of wrong fixtures which ultimately translated to limited awareness of broadcasted matches.
– Persistent stakeholder wrangling within the football fraternity: The persistent acrimony between the governing body and its key stakeholders among them media and top tier clubs has negatively affected the league’s brand affinity. Being a subscription broadcaster who leverages on content popularity, the constant confrontation has led to limited uptake and viewership of the property as seen through monitored performance on our platform.
– Failure to honor agreed contract deliverables: This is seen in various forms including but not limited to failure to broadcast the weekly free to air (FTA) fixtures, providing the weekly magazine shows and acknowledging the media sponsor as the official broadcast partner across agreed platforms.
– Constantly putting the StarTimes brand into disrepute: The failure and/or delayed delivery of scheduled fixtures have exposed the brand to constant subscriber backlash.
Source: Sportyafrica.com
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