Canal+ lost the 2026 World Cup rights in Africa. Here’s how Cameroon is watching anyway 📺🇨🇲

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Canal+ chose not to broadcast the 2026 World Cup in French-speaking Africa, and Cameroonians haven’t moved on. With the tournament now in full swing, fans are cobbling together a patchwork of screens, subscriptions, and technical workarounds to catch the matches. Outrage videos targeting the French media giant keep going viral — with no signs of cooling down.

Canal+ Africa, offside 🚫📡

On the group’s channels, it’s business as usual. Entertainment, movies, familiar sports content: the schedule rolls on as if nothing major is happening, with no World Cup window anywhere. That’s because New World TV — a pan-African broadcaster headquartered in Lomé, Togo — swept up the exclusive rights across French-speaking Africa.

« We should be experiencing the buzz of a major competition like the World Cup. It’s really disappointing that we can’t follow all the matches. And Canal seems to be turning a deaf ear, » said Marcel, a football fan.

This shift is about more than content: it signals a deeper technological reshuffle of sports broadcast rights across Africa, where new players are muscling in on territory Canal+ long considered its own.

Local channels fight back 📡💻

Facing a broadcast vacuum, CRTV Sports & Entertainment made its move: 44 matches secured to bring the World Cup to Cameroonian viewers. Canal 2 International followed suit, locking in rights to 44 of the tournament’s 104 matches as well. MSI TV joined the lineup, airing the opening match between Mexico and South Africa from day one. Still, with 104 matches in total, the arithmetic leaves a sizeable gap for supporters who want full, uninterrupted coverage.

« Hats off to our local channels — the effort deserves recognition. They kept us from the worst-case scenario, » said Algor, another football fan.

Streaming, IPTV, and the digital workaround 🌐📱

Without full terrestrial coverage, a portion of fans has shifted to digital solutions. Orange’s Maxit app provides access to New World TV’s channels on mobile and smart TV, covering more than 60 matches through the Togolese broadcaster’s continental package. Others are turning to cable or IPTV — options that promise wider coverage but remain hostage to internet connection quality.

« Cable goes down when it rains, IPTV isn’t always reliable with the network issues here — but it’s still much better than nothing. Otherwise I lose my customers, »

said Sandrine, a restaurant manager in Yaoundé. Buffering, outages, unstable speeds: the technology meant to bridge the gap sometimes becomes its own problem — especially in rural areas or when the power cuts out at the worst possible moment.

In the end, Canal+ stays in the crosshairs 🎯

Between local channels scrambling to fill the void and digital platforms struggling to guarantee a smooth experience, the 2026 World Cup has exposed a structural tension: Africa’s sports broadcasting ecosystem is technically reinventing itself, but Canal+ — still widely perceived as the dominant distributor in French-speaking Africa — remains the primary target of public anger.

How are you watching the 2026 World Cup — classic TV, streaming, or IPTV? Tell us in the comments.