Qatari broadcaster, BeIN Sports, has been criticised online after leaving out the Israeli team, Maccabi Haifa while tweeting about the Champions League group stage draw.
In one of the tweets on Thursday, the broadcaster listed only three teams in Group H, without mentioning Haifa as the fourth team.
“This was a completely inadvertent mistake,” a spokesman for the broadcaster told dpa on Friday. The tweets were deleted and new corrected ones were posted.
“We are one of the biggest media groups in the world operating in 40+ countries, there is zero political agenda of the group,” the spokesman said.
He added that BeIN group has broadcast Israel teams across their platforms.
BeIN Sports owns the broadcasting rights for the Champions League in the Arab world.
Qatar, the host of this year’s World Cup, does not maintain official diplomatic relations with Israel, and on the other hand it maintains good relations with the Islamist movement Hamas.
The World Cup will be held between Nov. 20 and Dec. 18.
