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Dubai: The Indian Premier League (IPL) got off to a controversial start with some of the world's leading news agencies boycotting coverage of the cricket extravaganza in India.
The News Media Coalition (NMC), which has global news and photographs agencies like Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France Presse (AFP) and Getty Images under its umbrella, refused coverage due to the restrictions imposed on the distribution of photographs.
The IPL officials have banned all news agencies from supplying pictures to cricket-specific websites.
As per the IPL accreditation terms, the news content generated by the news agencies must only be used for editorial purposes.
The IPL has, however, sold the portal rights of the event to a company based in North America for $50 million (about Dh183 million).
The NMC, in a statement to all newspapers, said: "It is discriminatory for the accreditation terms to prohibit international news agencies from being able to serve a specific group of users such as cricket websites."
All the newspapers have also received an advisory from leading news agencies stating that they will not be in a position to offer editorial coverage of the IPL due to unacceptable restrictions on the distribution of photographs.
‘Under protest'
The AFP from Hong Kong stated, "AFP will not, until further notice, offer any text, photo, or graphics coverage of the inaugural IPL due to restrictions imposed on the international news agencies on distribution of photographs."
However, India's leading news agency, the Press Trust of India (PTI), said it would report the event but "under protest".
Sports organisers have in the recent past made several attempts to curb media rights. Cricket Australia had imposed similar restrictions in February during the first Test between Sri Lanka and Australia in Brisbane and the news agencies boycotted the coverage.
The world football association [Fifa] also clamped a similar ban on photo coverage of the 2006 World Cup but backed down following a worldwide boycott threat. The organisers of the Rugby World Cup too had to settle a dispute over media rights.
The 44-day event brings together the world's leading cricketers who will turn out for eight Indian cities for 59 matches.
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