The Hindu : Sport / Football : The FIFA-WAN agreement

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Wednesday, Mar 15, 2006

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Sport - Football

The FIFA-WAN agreement

CHENNAI: Football's world governing body, FIFA, and the World Association of Newspapers, WAN, have reached an agreement that will lift all restrictions on digital publication of photographs of the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

The agreement came after a private meeting between FIFA President, Joseph S. Blatter, and the Chief Executive Officer of WAN, Timothy Balding, who was representing a coalition of leading news agencies, including AFP, AP, Reuters, Getty Images, DPA and EPA.

Mr. Blatter agreed that "almost all print media of relevance have their own web edition and reader preferences increasingly underline a shift in consumer habits to access topical information."

He said: "We understand that the publication of images and text must be treated with the same approach for the sake of maintaining a transparent information management policy that respects the Freedom of Press. I am satisfied that we have to amend the earlier position taken."

Welcoming the move, Mr. Balding said this would benefit millions of newspaper website readers worldwide.

The issue came up after FIFA sought to limit the number of photographs that could be published on the web, and also added that they should be published on the web only two hours after the games ended.

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