Yousef Al-Obaidly is the CEO of sports, entertainment and media organisation

beIN Media Group beIN Media Group ( /ˈbiːɪn/; Arabic: مجموعة بي إن الإعلامية‎, ''Majmū‘at Bī’in al-I‘lāmiyyah'') is a state-owned global sport and entertainment network headquartered in Doha, Qatar. beIN distributes entertainme ...

. Al-Obaidly also holds a number of board positions including at Paris Saint-Germain Football Club (PSG), Paris Saint-Germain Handball,

Qatar Sports Investments Qatar Sports Investments (QSi) is a closed shareholding organization founded in 2005 and based in Doha, Qatar. Revenues generated from ventures of QSi are reinvested into Qatar's sport, leisure and entertainment sectors. QSi is led by Chairman N ...

(PSG's owners), Qatar Tennis Federation, Qatar Satellite Company Es'hailSat and Qatar based telecoms company

Ooredoo Ooredoo QSC ( ar, أريد; formerly ''Qtel'') is a Qatari multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Doha. Ooredoo provides mobile, wireless, wire line, and content services with market share in domestic and international telec ...

. In 2020, he was named among the top ten sports influencers in the year ahead. He is known for his influence in the debate surrounding anti-piracy in sports media.

Early life

Al-Obaidly was born in

Doha Doha ( ar, الدوحة, ad-Dawḥa or ''ad-Dōḥa'') is the capital city and main financial hub of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf coast in the east of the country, north of Al Wakrah and south of Al Khor, it is home to most of the count ...

Qatar Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it ...

, where he spent his formative years, before studying in the US and graduating from Seattle University. After leaving university, Al-Obaidly played professional tennis and represented Qatar in the Davis Cup.

Professional career

In 2003, Al-Obaidly played a role in the launch of

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera ...

Sport, which would later transform into beIN Sports. In 2012, he was responsible for the roll-out of beIN Sports in France and other territories including the Americas and Asia-Pacific. He was promoted to the position of chief executive in 2018 and since his appointment as CEO, Al-Obaidly has been involved in media rights acquisitions for the FIFA Women's World Cup, FIFA Club World Cup,

UEFA Euro 2020 The 2020 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2020 (stylised as UEFA EURO 2020) or simply Euro 2020, was the 16th UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international men's football championship of Europe ...

and

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competi ...

Al-Obaidly has however warned that media rights bubble is about to burst. Al-Obaidly has also spearheaded distribution and sub-licensing deals with

Canal+ Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flo ...

, co-production deals with the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...

Anti-piracy advocacy

piracy Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...

beoutQ beoutQ was a pirate pay television broadcaster that operated in Saudi Arabia between August 2017 and August 2019. The service consisted of ten satellite television channels that carried rebranded feeds of programming from Qatari broadcaster ...

Saudi Arabia - Qatar diplomatic crisis

He called for Saudi Arabia to uphold the rule of law. During his keynote speech at the 2019 Leaders Week Sports Business Summit in London, he warned that football was in significant financial danger due to piracy. In an interview with

The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are popular names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia, publ ...

in 2019, Al-Obaidly described beoutQ's then ongoing piracy as "…without doubt – one of the largest and most damaging heists in corporate history." He specifically warned that piracy threatens Britain's thriving creative industries. In April 2020, Al-Obaidly wrote to

English Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

Chief Executive Richard Masters and the chairs of all 20 Premier League clubs, demanding that they block the attempted takeover of Newcastle United by a consortium backed by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia (PIF). In the letter, he again offered a warning about football finances and accused the Saudi Arabian government of stealing the Premier League's commercial rights and member clubs' commercial revenues through its alleged backing of beoutQ. Al-Obaidly's letter prompted accusations from the buying consortium that beIN held improper influence over the consortium's undertaking of the Premier League's Owners' and Directors' Test. This was due to beIN being the holders of Premier League's highest value overseas media rights contract, which was later renewed in December 2020.

Court cases

In 2019, a leaked report in

Le Monde ''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...

suggested that Al-Obaidly was under judicial investigation in France. However, it was later clarified that Al-Obaidly voluntarily attended an appointed meeting as part of a preliminary investigation and denied allegations against him.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Obaidly, Yousef Qatari media executives Qatari sports executives and administrators Chief executives in the sports industry Qatari chief executives Seattle University alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Living people