Streamer DAZN promises action to resolve Italian Serie A issues

ROME : Sports streaming service DAZN agreed on Tuesday to take urgent steps to improve its service in Italy following complaints from fans about glitches in its Serie A soccer broadcasts.

Called to a meeting with government ministers, DAZN executives also agreed to offer affected subscribers a refund after problems during matches last week including the game between Inter Milan and league leaders Napoli.

"It was confirmed that the company is willing to invest in improving the service, to place a technical operational structure in Italy and to directly reimburse all users who have experienced service disruption," Industry Minister Adolfo Urso said on Twitter.

Backed by billionaire Len Blavatnik, DAZN won the right in 2021 to screen Serie A live matches in Italy for three seasons with a 2.5 billion euro ($2.7 billion) bid, in one of the largest deals for the video-streaming service in Europe.

But the contract has proved a challenge for DAZN, with the service experiencing outages on a number of occasions and facing criticism on social media from frustrated fans.

Urso and Sports Minister Andrea Abodi met DAZN Chief Executive Shay Segev and its Italy head Stefano Azzi as well as senior Serie A figures in Rome to discuss the service.

DAZN said in a statement that it would speed up planned investment in Italy and set up a Network Operation Centre in the country to monitor service quality.

It blamed last week's problems on a global partner tasked with managing traffic on its servers.

It will refund affected subscribers a quarter of their monthly fee. DAZN charges 29.99 euros ($32.2) per month for a standard subscription.

($1 = 0.9318 euros)

(Writing by Keith Weir; Editing by Ken Ferris)