MILAN, Italy — Streaming television platform
DAZN was criticized by the Italian government on Monday after technical
problems caused subscribers to miss chunks of the opening weekend of the Serie
A football season.
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Fans were denied access to their accounts on the
country’s main Serie A broadcaster and at times randomly signed out while
watching matches, sparking fury among viewers and angry reactions from some of
Italy’s highest profile politicians.
On Monday Italy’s sport undersecretary Valentina
Vezzali said on Twitter that she would head an “urgent meeting” with Serie A,
the country’s economy ministry and communication industry regulator AGCOM
“given the serious and unacceptable problems suffered by customers unable to
connect” to DAZN.
AGCOM said that they had asked DAZN for an “urgent
explanation” for the problems and on “how the company is working to ensure that
similar issues are not repeated for the next match day”.
DAZN said on Monday that they would refund
subscribers an amount which would be specified “in the coming days” after the
widespread disruption to their service, described as “exceptional” in a
statement.
On Sunday night DAZN’s problems were so acute they
were forced to create a separate link to a low-resolution broadcast of Roma’s
season opener at Salernitana, forcing those who wanted to watch the match on
television onto other devices.
Contacted by AFP, a Serie A spokesman said that they
had asked for an explanation but that they would not be making any statement on
the matter.
DAZN, a platform sometimes referred to as “Sports
Netflix,”, was awarded the rights for Serie A coverage between 2021 and 2024 in
March last year after offering 2.52 billion euros (at the time $2.97 billion).
It had already been broadcasting three games per
matchday in Italy since 2018 before it beat satellite television group Sky for
exclusive rights to seven of each week’s 10 matches.
However DAZN already had attracted the wrath of
football fans for frequent frame rate problems and low resolution of broadcasts
compared to Sky, with questions raised about the technical capabilities of the
platform and the quality of Italian internet.
This summer they struck a deal with Sky to have a
channel on their platform, allowing matches broadcast by DAZN to be seen on
satellite television for a extra five euros per month on top of the basic 30
euro subscription fee.
DAZN will be exclusively broadcasting both of Monday’s
matches, with Napoli at Verona and Juventus hosting Sassuolo.
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