The status of the 3D cinema and out of home rights ownership to the World Cup is in doubt following reports that rights holder Aruna Media AG has defaulted on payments to FIFA, writes Adrian Pennington.
The report, included in last week’s Daily Mail, indicated that the Swiss-based company had had its contract terminated by FIFA. This has not been contradicated by FIFA.
In addition the PR company instructed to manage the Aruna Media World Cup account has frozen all activity until the matter is sorted. Aruna Media was unavailable for comment.
In April FIFA announced that Aruna would exclusively feed eight matches live to digital cinemas and selected venues in 3D HD around the globe.
At the time, Justin Ackerman, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Aruna Media, said: “We want this to be exclusive, with full theaters, so we are approaching a limited number of cinemas to ensure they are sold out and the match-day experience is authentic. We are expecting great demand for tickets.”