England fans were left fuming on Monday (November 21) after the BBC's iPlayer crashed during the country's first FIFA World Cup match.
The service went down minutes after England and Iran kicked off at the Khalifa International Stadium. Viewers complained over not being able to access the live stream of the match with the BBC website showing error messages.
Some people reported connection issues, with iPlayer failing to load accompanied by an error message. It read: "Sorry, it looks like something's not working right now. Please try again in a few minutes."
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Others have had issues logging into their iPlayer accounts. Independent outage monitor Down Detector recorded a huge spike in BBC iPlayer down reports as the Three Lions World Cup opener kicked off at 1pm on Monday. Frustrated fans took to Twitter to share their anger.
@sooby72 said: "BBC iPlayer down when the WC Iran match is on. You couldn't make it up!!" as @RallierOfTroops vented: "WHY IS BBC IPLAYER NOT F*****G WORKING IT’S THE WORLD CUP".
@Rusharooniee added: "Wow iPlayer down at worst possible time" as @gooner_sania complained: "For goodness sake.. our BBC iPlayer isn’t working," with a crying-face emoji, adding: "but come on Englandddd, LET’S GOOOO".
@_amxnaynwa questioned: "why does bbc iplayer decide to act up when footballs started ?" and @sickguy00995669 said: "BBC Iplayer is down which means millions of people can't watch the first England match. Absolute joke mate."
Gary Lineker apologised on-air to fans watching the England World Cup match on BBC iPlayer during the half-time break.
The BBC Match Of The Day host and former England footballer, 61, made the comments during half-time of England’s World Cup opener against Iran, adding that the broadcaster were working on fixing the problem as quickly as it could.
On Twitter, BBC Sport said: “We’re aware of an issue affecting some users on BBC iPlayer. We’re trying to fix this ASAP.
“Coverage is also available on BBC One and the BBC Sport website and app.”
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