He lobbied heavily for United 2026 against Morocco in the World Cup 2026
bid campaign. He ripped Saudi players after they lost to Russia, 5-0, in the 2018 World Cup opener. And he continued his assault on his favorite target, beIN Sports, part of the continuing diplomatic
war, now in its second year, between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which owns beIN Sports.
(1)The news of my dismissal from my
position has been circulated in the past two days.
First of all: it is an assignment, not an honor. If this was the case, there would be millions of people out there who are just like Turki
Al-Sheikh, or even better than he is. Second: I was— (@Turki_alalshikh) June 21,
2018
The background for al-Sheikh’s attacks on former FIFA president Sepp
Blatter, former UEFA president Michel Platini and, most stunningly, current UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin is the effort, so far unsuccessful, by FIFA, UEFA and beIN Sports to
shut down Saudi-based channel BeoutQ, which has pirated World Cup feeds from beIN Sports (and Telemundo) and used them for itself.
For the first time, UEFA accused BeoutQ by name of
piracy, saying it “poses a significant threat to European football.”
In response, al-Sheikh accused of Ceferin being a man “of many faces,” whom he had refused to meet. He
tweeted Ceferin “is trying to meet me, but I am telling him that I do not like to meet men of many faces.”
Al-Sheikh went on to say that UEFA’s accusations only masked the real
issue, “the monopoly and politicization of sports by beIN Sports which you force us to watch without taking into account the feelings of 30 million Saudi citizens and all the Arab countries’
whose opinions and views had been disregarded.”
UEFA responded that it was quite surprised by al-Sheikh’s tweet “as the UEFA President has never heard of this person and he therefore
would have no reason to meet him.”
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