Kingdom come: Alamiya Media on bringing the Supercoppa Italiana and Supercopa de España to Saudi Arabia

SVG Europe

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Among the myriad of international sports events staged in Saudi Arabia the annual Italian and Spanish Super Cups played out over successive weeks in January.

What was a single match between the league champion and domestic cup winner in each country was reformatted in 2023 so that each competition now features the top four teams from the previous season’s domestic tournaments.

In return, Saudi Arabia is paying €138 million for the Supercoppa Italiana from 2023 to 2029 and it is paying the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) around €40m for each Supercopa de España tournament until 2029.

Venue cities tend to rotate between Jeddah and Riyadh but the common denominator is local production services supplier Alamiya Media.

Since Telefonica holds the rights in Spain to the Copa del Rey and the Spanish Super Cup, the telco contracts Alamiya as service supplier in a continuation of an arrangement that began in 2022.

Telefonica flies in key personnel including technical producer, director, vision mixer and VT coordinator but the rest of the crew is staffed by Alamiya crew who regularly work on the Saudi Pro League (SPL).

Arrangements for the Supercoppa Italiana (technically the EA SPORTS FC Supercup) differs slightly in that Lega Serie A which organises Italy’s domestic cup competitions, contracts Alamiya Media directly to produce the games while also providing an editorial layer.

In more detail: Spanish Super Cup

The two Copa del Rey finalists and top two finishers in LaLiga fought the 2025 Spanish Super Cup beginning January 8. Real Madrid and Barcelona duly beat Mallorca and Athletic Bilbao to set up El Clásico on 12 January in front of nearly 60,000 spectators at the King Abdullah Sports City in Jeddah.

Despite opening the scoring through Mbappe, Barca saw off their rivals 5-2 thanks to wunderkind Lamine Yamal and a brace from Raphinha.

All three matches were played at Jeddah’s stadia which is naturally a benefit in terms of not having to change logistics between games.

They were each covered with a 29 camera plan including Sony 3500 super slow motion and 6500 Ultra slow motion cameras in HD 1080i/50. A notable camera addition this year was a FPV drone that flew inside the stadium and not just for pre- and post-match activities and celebrations but during the game itself flying over the spectators.

“Production and transmission format depends on the rights holder,” says Miguel Caso, Chief Broadcast Officer, for Riyadh based Alamiya Media. “All of our larger trucks are UHD ready.” 

All production is performed on site except occasionally for graphics. “This would usually be for international or English language graphics. We always have a backup on site to do graphics but whether remote or on-prem the Leagues prefer to handle graphics themselves, bringing in their own operator. They know the graphics package and workflow better and sometimes they bring their own hardware.”

In more detail: Italian Super Cup

The first semifinal of the EA SPORTS FC Supercup on January 2 was between Inter (winners of the 2023/2024 Serie A championship) and Atalanta (finalists of the 2023/2024 Coppa Italia). The team coached by Simone Inzaghi won 2-0 against Atalanta, earning a place in the final.

On January 3, Juventus (winners of the 2023/2024 Coppa Italia) and Milan (second-place finishers in the 2023/2024 Serie A) engaged in a thrilling match, which ended with Milan’s 2-1 victory.
The Milan derby final on January 6 was won by Milan 3-2 with a Tammy Abrahams winner in stoppage time winner.

The broadcast model is almost identical to the Spanish Super Cup although Caso describes the Italian  setup as “creatively more aggressive.”

This year included a first use of a AGITO modular dolly system which roamed along one of the touchlines during the Final. This buggy carried a stabilised Shotover head and wireless Sony HDC-P50 camera with Canon CN10 lens.

“This was a proof of concept and provided some really nice shots during the match, like a Steadicam, but under remote control,” he says.

“We were also using a Sony Venice positioned on a jimmy jib behind the goal fitted with a PL lens for nice replays with that cinematic touch.”

Camera ops with gimbals carrying Sony A7s with PL lenses offered shots of players in the tunnel and during the match for crowd reactions.

Both competitions used drones, one operating outside the stadia offering beauty shots and fireworks at the final, as well as an FPV in the stadia.

“Both camera plans are very similar but I would say that the Italian one was maybe a little bit more aggressive with new technologies and tweaked for the Italian taste,” Caso says.

The Italian production wears innovation on its sleeve to the extent that displayed a special graphic on screen to introduce a new technology or camera angle during coverage.

The FPV drone was briefed to fly around the grandstands during the game but during the second semi-final, after a goal, the operator (or director) disregarded this and had it enter the field of play to fly in on top and over of the players as they were gathering to celebrate.

“We felt that was maybe too much, it was provocative, and we made sure not to repeat it for the Final - but it was a very nice shot indeed,” Caso says

Alamiya has previously innovated with drones including during the much hyped Lionel Messi Vs Cristiano Ronaldo clash in February 2024 when Inter Miami played Al Nassr. Messi spent most of the game on the bench and his team lost 6.0.

“Because that was a preseason friendly we had more flexibility and had previously agreed with both teams that the FPV would go pretty much up everywhere in the game.”

VAR for both competitions relied on the Hawk-eye infrastructure in regular use for the Saudi Pro League. While there is a VAR centre in Riyadh the system tends to be a hybrid remote-on-site model in the country.

 “Where the stadium has good connectivity VAR is remoted but where that’s not the case VAR is conducted in the OB compound.”

All transmission and feeds are contributed by satellite from the venue back to broadcast centres in Spain (Telefonica’s facilities) and Italy (to IE Towers in Lissone, north of Milan) for regional versioning, virtual advertising insertion and onward distribution.

EI Towers managed the satellite signal distribution system between the Al-Awwal Park Stadium and its MCRs in Italy using four transmission antennas provided by Alamiya Media. The transmission antennas, positioned at the stadium’s TV compound and supervised by EI Towers’ broadcast and external connection technical team, ensured the transmission of 8 distinct signals, totalling over 150 hours of redundant international connections. To coordinate the activities, the company also set up a VoIP conferencing system between the venue and its operational centres.