The Jordanian government on Thursday categorically denied a report by Britain's Guardian newspaper that its territory was used for jamming the sports signal of the Doha-based al-Jazeera network during the World Cup in South Africa in June. "We categorically deny this report and consider such allegations untrue and unacceptable," a government official was quoted as saying by the official Petra news agency. The Guardian report, which had been played up by al-Jazeera over the previous 24 hours, said the jamming was "traced to Jordan, which appears to have retaliated angrily after the collapse of a deal that would have allowed football fans there free access to the matches." The report said the paper was in exclusive possession of secret documents tracing "five episodes of jamming definitively to a location near Salt in Jordan, north-east of the capital Amman, confirmed by technical teams using geolocation technology." The unidentified Jordanian official acknowledged that negotiations between the Jordanian government and the Qatari satellite channel, over access to the matches carried exclusively by al-Jazeera, had failed because the network's offer was unacceptable to Amman and came "too late." "However, the Jordanian government kept the outcome of the negotiations secret and continued to deal with al-Jazeera bureau in Amman in a professional manner," he said.
