Football fans in Myanmar boycott the World Cup on TV

MANDALAY - When Myanmar was run by a civilian government, fans in the soccer-mad country flocked to bars and tea shops to watch World Cup games. Now, five years after the military seized power in a coup, an informal boycott of official broadcasts of the tournament has spread across the country.

FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, has provoked widespread anger in the beleaguered nation by awarding World Cup broadcast rights to a telecom company partly owned by Myanmar’s brutal military. FIFA selected the company, Mytel, even though the United States placed the firm under sanctions last year for abusing human rights.

“The World Cup used to bring our community together,” said Zin Maung, the owner of an open-air pub in the city of Mandalay, where packed crowds once watched the games projected on a large wall. “Now, even football has become a reminder of what we’ve lost.”

In 2021, the military ousted the civilian government, imprisoned elected leaders and crushed nationwide protests. The junta has been waging war ever since against ethnic armed groups and pro-democracy forces.

Unable to subdue the rebels, it frequently bombs civilian targets, including hospitals, churches and schools. Nearly 3.6 million people have been displaced from their homes.

Mytel, formally known as the Telecom International Myanmar, is jointly owned by a conglomerate controlled by Myanmar’s military and Vietnam’s defence ministry. It is reviled by much of Myanmar’s population for helping finance the regime’s war and providing customer data that has led to the arrest and torture of outspoken critics.

In January 2025, the Trump administration said it was placing sanctions on Mytel “for providing surveillance services and financial support to Burma’s military regime, enabling the regime to carry out human rights abuses through the tracking and identification of target individuals and groups.”

(The United States, among others, does not recognise Myanmar as the country’s name and instead uses its previous name, Burma.)

In response to questions from The New York Times, FIFA said that a review it conducted before entering into the agreement with Mytel had not flagged any problems.

“As a matter of common practice, commercial deals undertaken by FIFA are internally reviewed by FIFA’s compliance department and FIFA identified no issues in this regard,” it said in a brief statement.

Mytel did not respond to a request for comment.

FIFA’s decision to award broadcast rights to Mytel came under harsh criticism from the rights group Burma Campaign UK, which called on the soccer body to cancel the contract immediately.

“FIFA has chosen to take money from the Burmese military instead of ensuring football fans in Burma can enjoy watching the World Cup,” said the organisation’s director, Mark Farmaner. “FIFA is helping the Burmese military make profits which they can use to buy the bombs they drop on schools and hospitals.”

Myanmar began regularly participating in World Cup qualifying matches in 2010, but its teams have never advanced beyond the second round. Many fans in Myanmar avidly follow European and South American teams.

“Football is supposed to bring people together, not force fans to support those who oppress them,” said Win Kyaw, 45, an Argentina fan and IT technician in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city.

With World Cup viewing parties long gone, fans avoid Mytel by using their phones and outlawed VPNs to access matches on streaming apps or overseas broadcasts. Some connect their phones to their television for better viewing.

“The World Cup is something I always look forward to, but this time it is frustrating,” said Kyaw Gyi, 39, a follower of England, Portugal and France who owns a small restaurant in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. “The streaming apps are full of ads and often don’t work smoothly, so I miss many matches and only manage to watch a few key games.”

The World Cup is equally popular in territory that is controlled by rebel armies, outside the country’s heavily populated urban core. There, watching official FIFA broadcasts is not an option.

“We don’t have Mytel in the liberated areas,” said Thura Aung, 29, a passionate England fan and farmer in rural Sagaing Region. “Mytel towers have been destroyed and burned down. We watch football through apps on the internet.”

In miliary-controlled areas, even if bars use a VPN and WiFi to show the games, the crowds are small. Many young people stay home for fear of being picked up by a military patrol and pressed into the military, Zin Maung said.

“Before the coup, beer stations were packed with football fans and full of joy,” he said. “Football is best when you gather with friends. Now, watching alone on a phone at home is heartbreaking.” NYTIMES