Al Jazeera blames hackers for World Cup interruption
Al Jazeera Sport’s World Cup broadcasts were interrupted for a second straight day yesterday – glitches the satellite broadcaster blamed on hackers.
The Argentina versus Nigeria match yesterday blacked out for minutes at a time, disappeared entirely from one channel, and suffered from pixellation and distortion. On Friday, the broadcast experienced disruptions for most of the first half of the 2010 World Cup’s opening match between Mexico and South Africa.
Football aficionados in cafes and hotels from Al Ain to Dubai were perplexed by problems, which at one point saw play-by-play commentary switch from English to French. Broadcasters issued an on-air apology for the issues at halftime of the Argentina-Nigeria match, and later the feed had a scrolling message telling viewers to retune to alternate satellite channels.
