A SPORTS TV channel is suing Saudi Arabia for $1billion for blocking its transmissions and launching a 'pirate operation' instead.

beIN Sports, based in Qatar, says they have been driven out of its biggest broadcast market in the region with millions of viewers stopping subscriptions for crown jewel events such as the World Cup, Premier League, Champions League and Formula One.

2 beIN Sports allege that there is state-sponsored piracy affecting their broadcast market share Credit: AFP

Instead, fans are able to watch coverage of the same fixtures on a station called beoutQ, which is transmitted via Riyadh-based satellite provider Arabsat, owned by Saudi Arabia.

The broadcasts are exactly the same - with the only difference being a beoutQ logo superimposed over the beIN one.

At the same time as the beIN was yesterday launching its ‘investment arbitration’ case against Saudi Arabia for $1bn (£766m) in damages, Qatar announced it was taking its neighbour to the World Trade Organisation claiming the desert kingdom had broken laws on the protection of intellectual property.

Three months ago Fifa threatened to take legal action after beoutQ transmitted the whole of the World Cup, despite the rights for the tournament in the Middle East and North Africa region being held by Qatar.

2 Ex-Sky Sports pundit Andy Gray now works for broadcaster beIN Sports Credit: Twitter @beINSPORTS

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Before that Uefa had also condemned illegal transmissions of the Champions League, claiming state-sponsored piracy "poses a significant threat to European football".

The alleged piracy began after a Saudi Arabia-led alliance launched a diplomatic and trade boycott of Qatar in June 2017 accusing the tiny Gulf state of cosying up to Iran and supporting terrorism, which Doha denies.

The Riyadh-government banned viewers from renewing their subscriptions with beIN Sports, who claim they instead managed to find a way to steal the Qatar channel’s feed which could be viewed via beoutQ decoder boxes.

Sophie Jordan, general counsel for beIN Media, said: "Quite clearly we are being unfairly used as a political football in a wider regional dispute.

"But this case has implications far beyond beIN – in beoutQ, Saudi Arabia has created a plague of piracy and unless the whole sports, entertainment and broadcast industry takes a stand, its impact will be devastating and irreversible."

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Saudi Arabia has denied being behind the illegal broadcasts, blaming Cuban and Colombian companies instead.

However, in August three of the world’s leading digital security and technology companies – Cisco Systems, NAGRA and Overon - confirmed that beoutQ was being distributed via Arabsat.

It prompted the Premier League to launch legal action over the illicit streaming of its matches saying: "The Premier League has seen compelling evidence demonstrating beoutQ is a highly sophisticated pirate operation which has used the services of the satellite provider Arabsat to distribute the illegal content."

The sale of subscriptions and set-top boxes for the TV network is available in shops across Saudi Arabia, which has a population of 32 million, and fans regularly gather in restaurants and cafes to watch matches.

beoutQ is geolocked, meaning it can only be viewed in Saudi Arabia.