On the evening of September 6th, iQiyi Sports issued another apology statement and provided a compensation plan due to the poor viewing experience of some users during the live broadcast of the round of 18 national football matches of the 2026 World Cup Asian qualifiers.
IQiyi Sports stated that during the live broadcast of the China vs Japan match in the Chinese Football Association's round of 18 on September 5th, due to the enthusiasm of Chinese fans far exceeding our expectations, there was an instantaneous surge in traffic and a surge in payment users after the start of the game, resulting in some users being unable to purchase and their purchased benefits not being credited in real time, which affected their viewing experience. We deeply apologize for this.
At the same time, iQiyi Sports announced a compensation plan.
For sports members who repeatedly redeem their viewing vouchers, the redeemed vouchers have been returned to their account.
2. For users who make duplicate payments, the amount of the duplicate purchase will be refunded.
3. Users whose rights are damaged during the competition will be compensated with one viewing voucher to their account.
On September 5th, in the first round of Group C of the Round of 18 Asian qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup, the Chinese men's football team lost 0-7 away to the Japanese men's football team.
However, due to the high price, CCTV did not broadcast this game, and iQiyi Sports became the only broadcasting platform in China. The broadcaster shows that this game is not free, and non member users need to pay 9 yuan to watch it.
However, a number of netizens roast about problems such as stuck payment page, repeated payment, and inability to watch the game after payment shortly after the game started that night.