A toxic political dispute is threatening to sink the Persian Gulf’s biggest sports television contract, a development that could have repercussions for other broadcast rights agreements worth billions of dollars.

The Asian Football Confederation, the governing body for soccer in the region, on Tuesday unilaterally broke its exclusive contract with its Middle Eastern broadcast partner, the Qatar-based beIN Media Group, so that it could broadcast matches in Saudi Arabia, a country where beIN has been banned amid a bitter diplomatic and economic crisis between Gulf neighbors that is now in its second year.

The A.F.C’s decision to nullify its contract for the broadcast rights to games in Saudi Arabia comes even after rulers there have allowed a major piracy operation, perhaps the most sophisticated in television history, to steal billions of dollars of sports content owned by beIN since 2017.

BeIN’s rights deals with the A.F.C., which run through 2020, are worth $300 million. The broadcaster immediately announced its intention to file a lawsuit to counter the decision to strip it of the rights to games broadcast in Saudi Arabia, which comes weeks before the A.F.C.’s president, Sheikh Salman Bin Ibrahim al-Khalifa of Bahrain, stands for re-election. His opposition in that vote consists of a candidate from the United Arab Emirates, a Saudi ally, and another from Qatar.