Iris Sport Media, the boutique agency set up by Ioris Francini and his former IMG colleagues Floris Weisz and Luca Baldanza, has been appointed by state-controlled sports media entity Saudi Sports Company (SSC) to distribute international broadcast rights to CAF qualifiers to the 2026 Fifa World Cup.
The deal, which marks Iris’ first piece of new business in the rights distribution space following the official company launch, comes after Fifa awarded centralised global rights to the qualifiers to SSC.
Iris is distributing all media rights in the Americas, Asia and Europe to the 273 qualifying matches. CAF’s qualifying tournament began last week with the opening group matches.
An agreement was reached with all 54 CAF members back in August 2019, under which the media rights to all African qualifiers for the 2022 and 2026 World Cups would be managed by Fifa under a centralised sales model. Fifa claimed at the time it could double the revenue from the property.
IMG was then awarded the contract to distribute rights to CAF’s 2022 World Cup qualifiers.
A record nine African teams will compete at the expanded 48-team World Cup across USA, Canada and Mexico with a 10th side to compete in the Fifa play-off tournament. As well as more qualification spots on offer, there has also been a change to the qualification system for 2026, meaning much more inventory for broadcasters.
Francini, who sits on the board of SRJ Sports Investment, the new investment vehicle of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, said: “We are excited to have secured our first deal in top-quality world football and to be working with the SSC and CAF on behalf of Fifa. Our aim will be to ensure the best and widest possible exposure for the World Cup qualifying matches with broadcasters throughout the world.”