& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Why ban on SuperSport?

QUAZI ZULQUARNAIN ISLAM
Sports fans across the city are continually frustrated at finding themselves in the dark over TV coverage of some of the best sporting events from across the globe.
Sports, especially football from European leagues and World Cup qualifiers, have emerged as a growing interest with young people in the city charting the progress of their adopted’club and country intently.
Most however are often frustrated at the utter lack of television coverage that has emerged since the government decided to impose a ban on popular free-to-air channels SuperSport 1 8 in July 2007.
T don't understand why the government does not permit free-to-air chan-' nels like SuperSport. We continually miss out on important sporting events both in football and cricket," says Tausif, a resident of Dhanmondi.
At present ESPN-Star Sports, Ten Sports and Zee Sports are the operational sport channels that are authorized by the government. However, the three make up only a small slice of the pie as regards international sports events with SuperSport covering all of their above programs and much more.
In football alone, ESPN-Star Sports only holds the rights for the English Premier League while Ten and Zee
Sports, hold the rights to the UEFA Champions League.
"Almost all coverage (by the above channels] is one-dimensional and focus on English clubs," bemoans Zubair, a resident of Banani.
"Three years ago, we were inundated with sports channels with Neo Sports and SuperSport providing coverage of the Italian, German and Spanish leagues iq addition to showcasing the World Cup qualifiers. At the moment we have to be content with only the English league.”
International football matches involving national giants are also not shown in any of the four allowed channels leaving fans poring over the internet to catch updates of games.
South American giants Argentina and Brazil will clash tomorrow in a crunch qualifying tie and the game has provoked huge interest from fans with the Sports section of The Daily Star inundated with phone calls asking where the action can be caught live.
While SuperSport 5 is set to beam live coverage of the game, the government ban on downlink will mean that fans across the country will be bereft of the live action and have to contend themselves with news reports.
‘Tn this age of information and globalisation, it is extremely frustrating that such a government ban will deny fans the chance to catch their favourite players in action. As a fan of Lionel Messi,
I am saddened at not being able to catch his games either for Barcelona (Spanish Premier League! or for Argentina," bemoans Sadat, another resident of Dhanmondi.
Anwar Parvez, President of COAB (Cable Operators Association of Bangladesh) sympathized with the plights of the viewers.
"SuperSport is an exceptional sports channel which showcases almost all cricket and football across the globe. It is extremely popular and we get numerous requests asking for it to be re-instated everyday.
"It is a free-to-air channel which anyone with a dish antenna can watch. I have appealed to the past (caretaker) government on numerous occasions for the ban on downlink to be overturned without success."
SuperSport was initially banned in July 2007 along with all free-to-air channels. COAB later appealed to the government for an upturn of the ban of 64 free-to-air channels, citing huge demand from the public. 34 were granted permission but SuperSport missed the cut.
“I hope the government looks into this matter as soon as possible with a view to overturning the ban. There is an immense demand for this channel and the technology permits us to showcase .1 wide array of sports (through SuperSport) without any worry of misappropriation of funds."