Al Jazeera Sport Managing Director Nasser bin Ghanem Al-Kholeifi accused Nilesat of intentional disruption, calling it an “act of piracy” in an article published on Saturday in Dubai’s Emarat Al-Yom newspaper.

Egyptian officials denied any involvement in the sabotage and said that it was looking into the matter.

“We have launched an investigation to find out how it happened. Egypt has no interest whatsoever in marring the reputation of the Arab world’s best provider, the Nilesat,” said Mahmoud Juma, the head of the Egyptian Radio & Television Union, which owns 40 percent of Nilesat, quoted by Aljazeera.net.

“Al Jazeera might have decided to punish Nilesat 10 minutes after the first disruption by claiming that its causes were unknown and requesting its viewers to move to other providers, such as Arabsat, Hotbird and Noorsat,” Juma said.

He continued: “Al Jazeera is punishing Egyptian viewers and advertisers. Egyptians are not thieves or highwaymen; we are gentlemen and professionals. We do not want to spoil the fun of Egyptian and Arab families watching the World Cup.”

Viewers in Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries were frustrated and angry.

“We were watching South Africa’s game with Mexico when the game feed was suddenly cut off,” said 23-year-old Mohammed Al-Zahrani, sitting at a Jeddah coffee shop.

“At the beginning we asked the coffee shop’s owner if they had paid their subscription for the Al Jazeera Sport channels or not, and he told us he did, and the shouldn’t be a reason for games to cut off.”

In Riyadh, football fans unleashed a fury of invective against Al Jazeera.

Fans turned to online forums to express their ire.

“World Cup fever is getting ruined by Al Jazeera’s technical problem,” Twitter user “mjeddy” protested.

“I’d like to thank Al Jazeera for ruining my first World Cup game. No signal and no customer support. Just brilliant,” said another who called himself Nasserak.

— With input from agencies