In June 2026, FIFA granted exclusive Myanmar broadcast rights for the 2026 World Cup to TV360, the streaming and entertainment platform run by Mytel — the telecom operator jointly owned by Myanmar’s military and Vietnam’s Viettel Group. Myanmar Now first reported the deal on June 10, 2026, and The Irrawaddy’s June 11, 2026 report laid out why the choice drew immediate condemnation: Mytel had been under US Commerce Department sanctions since January 2025. A month later, when Mytel staged a public viewing festival for the tournament’s final weekend in Yangon, Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) reported on July 16, 2026 that the venue struggled to draw a crowd, with organizers resorting to “buy one get one free” ticket deals.
This piece walks through what is actually known about the rights deal, who objected and why, what happened when the festival opened its gates, and — just as importantly — what remains undocumented in public reporting.
What FIFA Actually Awarded, and to Whom
According to The Irrawaddy’s reporting, FIFA opened bidding for World Cup media rights in September 2025, and TV360 — described as Mytel’s main TV and digital entertainment platform — was selected as Myanmar’s official broadcaster on May 25, 2026. FIFA has said publicly that it selects broadcasters based on their ability to reach the widest possible audience, deliver a high-quality viewing experience, and demonstrate the financial capacity to pay the full cost of the rights fee, which The Irrawaddy describes as high. What that general criteria statement does not settle is the specific mechanics of Mytel’s deal: The Irrawaddy’s own reporting is explicit that “it remains unclear how Mytel acquired the broadcasting rights” — meaning whether TV360 contracted with FIFA directly or obtained the rights through a regional sub-broadcaster arrangement. No bid amount or Myanmar-specific selection rationale has been made public in any of the sources reviewed for this article.
That narrower gap still matters. FIFA’s stated criteria are general enough to apply to any bidder in any market, so they don’t explain why TV360 specifically won in Myanmar, or whether Mytel’s military ownership was weighed for or against it in that decision. Nothing in the record we could verify answers that question either way.
A Broadcaster Owned by the Military and a Foreign Ministry of Defence
Mytel is a joint venture between Myanmar’s military, operating through its conglomerate Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC), and Vietnam’s Viettel Group, which itself is state-owned and sits under Vietnam’s Ministry of National Defence. Mytel is one of Myanmar’s four major mobile network operators, alongside MPT, ATOM, and U9 (formerly Ooredoo) — a carrier Myanmar Tech Press has covered repeatedly in the context of SIM pricing, data packages, and network rollouts. What has not had its own dedicated article until now is Mytel’s sanctions status, even though it is central to why this broadcast deal became controversial.
The US Department of Commerce sanctioned Mytel in January 2025, citing the company’s role in providing surveillance services and financial support to Myanmar’s military regime that the department said enable the regime to carry out human rights abuses through the tracking and identification of target individuals and groups, according to The Irrawaddy’s reporting. MEC, Mytel’s military-linked parent, is separately sanctioned by the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Canada, and Australia. Viettel Group, for its own part, also secured World Cup broadcast rights in Vietnam and Laos — a detail worth noting for context, since it places Myanmar’s deal inside a wider regional pattern of Viettel-linked entities winning tournament rights, rather than something unique to the Myanmar contract alone.
Rights Groups Objected Before a Ball Was Kicked
Justice for Myanmar spokesperson Ma Yadanar Maung criticized the deal in The Irrawaddy’s June 11, 2026 report, saying: “We condemn FIFA’s decision to award media rights to Mytel for the World Cup… Mytel is a lucrative source of revenue for the brutal and illegal military junta.” According to DVB’s later report, Justice for Myanmar and Burma Campaign UK went on to issue formal joint statements condemning FIFA’s broadcast agreement on June 12, 2026. Burma Campaign UK director Mark Farmaner framed the objection in terms of who benefits financially, telling DVB: “FIFA has chosen to take money from the Burmese military instead of ensuring football fans in Burma can enjoy watching the World Cup.”
Activist Thinzar Shunlei Yi raised a separate concern in the same Irrawaddy report, pointing to Mytel’s pattern of providing user data to Myanmar authorities and arguing this makes the company complicit in the crackdown on dissent. It’s worth being precise about how these claims are sourced: they are the stated positions of named advocacy figures and organizations, not independently adjudicated findings in the reporting reviewed here. FIFA’s own response to the criticism, if any was issued, was not documented in the sources available for this article.
What Happened When the Fan Festival Actually Opened
Roughly five weeks after the rights announcement, Mytel staged “World Cup 26 Fan Festival Myanmar” at Yangon’s Thuwunna Stadium from July 14 to 19, 2026 — a window covering the tournament’s semifinals, third-place match, and final. DVB’s July 16, 2026 report described a promotional push that included performances by singers Phyo Gyi, Ni Ni Khin Zaw, and Sandi Myint Lwin, large LED screens, food stalls, and dedicated transport arranged through Yangon Bus Service (YBS). Tickets were priced at 30,000 kyat (roughly $6.98) per match, with an all-match VIP pass at 150,000 kyat (roughly $34.88).
Despite that buildup, DVB reported that turnout fell short and organizers turned to “buy one get one free” ticket promotions to fill seats. Residents interviewed anonymously from Yangon’s South Okkalapa and Thaketa townships pointed to a specific fear as a factor keeping people away: Myanmar’s conscription law, in effect since February 10, 2024 and applicable to men aged 18 to 35, has made large public gatherings feel risky to the demographic most likely to attend a World Cup viewing party. The concern described in that reporting was that a stadium full of young men could become a convenient site for enforcement, not that any specific conscription action was documented as having occurred at the festival itself.
What We Still Don’t Know
It is tempting to read the discounted tickets as proof of a broader failure — a boycott that worked, or a financial loss for Mytel. Neither claim is something we can verify from public reporting. No source reviewed for this article included attendance figures, total ticket sales, TV360 viewership or subscriber numbers, or any estimate of the festival’s or the broadcast deal’s financial performance. What is documented is narrower and more specific: reduced-price ticket promotions were used, and residents cited conscription fears as a reason to stay away. Readers should treat the gap between “empty-looking stadium” and “the deal was a financial failure for Mytel” as exactly that — a gap, not a conclusion the available sources support.
Why a Broadcast Rights Deal Is a Telecom Story
Mytel is not just a media distributor here; it is one of Myanmar’s four national mobile network operators, and TV360 is built as an extension of that telecom infrastructure — the same company that sells SIM cards and data plans is the one FIFA has now made the exclusive gateway to World Cup coverage. That overlap is part of why the sanctions detail matters beyond a single sports story: it is a reminder that when international organizations sign commercial deals in Myanmar, they are frequently signing with entities whose ownership structure runs directly through the military and its business arms, whether the counterparty is a telecom operator, a broadcaster, or — as with an unrelated case Myanmar Tech Press has tracked separately — a state customs platform. The World Cup rights deal is a useful, concrete example of that pattern because the outcome (a half-empty stadium and discounted tickets) is one of the few parts of the story that was actually observable and reported on the ground.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Mytel under US sanctions?
Yes. The US Department of Commerce sanctioned Mytel in January 2025, citing its role in providing surveillance services and financial support that the department said enable human rights abuses through tracking and identification, according to The Irrawaddy’s reporting.
Who owns Mytel and TV360?
Mytel is a joint venture between Myanmar’s military, via its conglomerate Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC), and Vietnam’s Viettel Group, a state-owned company under Vietnam’s Ministry of National Defence. TV360 is Mytel’s television and digital entertainment platform.
Did FIFA explain why it chose Mytel for Myanmar’s broadcast rights?
FIFA opened bidding in September 2025 and selected TV360 for Myanmar on May 25, 2026, according to The Irrawaddy, and has publicly described its general broadcaster criteria (audience reach, viewing quality, financial capacity to pay the rights fee in full). What remains unclear, per The Irrawaddy’s own reporting, is the specific mechanics of how Mytel acquired the rights — for instance, whether it dealt with FIFA directly or through a sub-broadcaster arrangement.
What happened at Mytel’s World Cup fan festival in Yangon?
The “World Cup 26 Fan Festival Myanmar” ran July 14–19, 2026 at Thuwunna Stadium, covering the semifinals through the final. DVB reported that turnout was weak enough that organizers introduced “buy one get one free” ticket deals, with residents citing fear of Myanmar’s conscription law as a reason to avoid the crowd.
Do we know how many people actually watched on TV360 or attended the festival?
No. Total viewership, ticket sales figures, and any measure of the broadcast deal’s financial performance were not available in the public reporting reviewed for this article.
Taken together, the two halves of this story sit awkwardly next to each other: a broadcast rights deal secured through a process nobody has explained, followed by a flagship public event that needed discount pricing to draw a crowd. Neither half, on its own, tells the whole story — and the parts that would settle the bigger questions, from viewership numbers to the actual terms FIFA negotiated, simply aren’t public. What is public is enough to establish that Myanmar’s exclusive World Cup coverage ran through a US-sanctioned, military-linked telecom operator, that rights groups objected to that arrangement in named, on-record statements, and that the festival built to capitalize on the tournament’s final weekend did not fill its seats without a discount.
Sources: Myanmar Now, “Mytel wins Myanmar broadcast rights for 2026 FIFA World Cup,” June 10, 2026, https://myanmar-now.org/mm/news/78945/ — The Irrawaddy, “FIFA Slammed For Granting World Cup Rights To Myanmar Military’s Broadcaster,” June 11, 2026, https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/myanmars-crisis-the-world/fifa-slammed-for-granting-world-cup-rights-to-myanmar-militarys-broadcaster.html — Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), “Yangon residents boycott military-linked World Cup fan festival amid conscription fears and FIFA backlash,” July 16, 2026, https://english.dvb.no/yangon-residents-boycott-military-linked-world-cup-fan-festival-amid-conscription-fears-and-fifa-backlash/