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Turki al-Shiekh, the Saudi sports minister and one of the most powerful figures in Middle Eastern football, has been widely mocked online in an escalating row over Qatar-owned sports broadcasting rights.

Al-Sheikh tweeted on Thursday: "The President of the Union of European Football Association, UEFA, is trying to meet me, but I am telling him that I do not like to meet men of many faces."

But UEFA decided not to take the insult lying down, "quote-tweeting" the billionaire Saudi supremo to their 823,000 followers worldwide, adding that they had no idea who he was.

Al-Sheikh's outburst at UEFA came amid an angry Donald Trump-esque tweetstorm after rumours of his resignation took ahold of social media and caused many across the region to celebrate.

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The Saudi sports minister had angered Egyptian fans ahead of the World Cup, after tweeting his desires to see further injury done to Egyptian superstar Mohamed Salah.

"Let us miss him ahead of the World Cup," Sheikh said, implying that Salah's absence would be beneficial for the Saudi team.

This is the man who allegedly "donated" a million dollars to Palestinian grassroots football in a deal that saw his old friend Julio Cesar Baldivieso appointed as Palestine's national team coach - a loyal ally in matters of regional sports governance.

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The Twitter nonsense is just the latest spat in a developing feud between the world's football governing bodies and Saudi authorities.

The Middle East TV rights for the World Cup are held by BeIn Sports, a Qatari network. But an illegal stream is being simultaneously broadcast by a Riyadh-based channel calling itself BeOutQ. 

BeoutQ, which was described last week by FIFA as a pirate TV channel, has been hijacking the BeIn satellite feed and blurring the Qatari network's logo - and allowing its own stream to be reproduced widely.

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In a statement, FIFA said it "takes infringements of its intellectual property very seriously and is exploring all options to stop the infringement of its rights".

UEFA similarly slammed BeoutQ for illegally screening European games earlier in the season.

"UEFA considers that illegal piracy of live football, particularly on the scale of that being carried out by BeoutQ poses a significant threat to European football," read a statement released on Thursday.

Instead of responding to the serious allegations, Turki reacted with ten tweets each in Arabic and English, attacking Qatar and bemoaning how he does not appreciate being forced to watch BeIn Sports.

Turki al-Sheikh continued by describing UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin as a duplicitous man "of many faces".

"You force us to watch without taking into account the feelings of 30 million Saudi citizens and all the Arab countries' whose opinions and views had been disregarded."

UEFA responded to Turki's rant by asking who he was.

"UEFA was quite surprised by a tweet of @Turki_alalshikh, as the UEFA President has never heard of this person and he therefore would have no reason to meet him," the European football body tweeted.

Reactions were quick to follow:

Translation: Play dead

Translation: So you're not just a traitor, but a liar too?

It's not the first time Al-Sheikh has not been recognised, either... Imagine being a man of such wealth and status, yet even the soccer heroes you pay to come and visit you go to greet the wrong guy instead?




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