(allegedly backed by Saudi Arabia) also illegally broadcast the tournament as part of a proxy conflict in a diplomatic crisis between Qatar and various Arab states. The AFC has noted BeoutQ's broadcast and condemned it for "persistent and illegal screening". For the first time since the expulsion of Israel from the Asian Football Confederation, the UAE allowed Israeli TV channel Sport 5 to directly broadcast the tournament. This was seen as a sign of warming relations between Israel and the UAE. Sport 5 officially broadcast the opening match between the UAE and Bahrain, and had remained active until the end of the tournament. A year later in the following tournament, Israel and the United Arab Emirates officially normalised relations. At the end of the tournament, AFC announced that the 2019 Asian Cup was the most engaging in history across all social platforms reaching 169.4 million impressions, an increase by more than fifteen times from the 11 million reach from 2015 AFC Asian Cup. Broadcast rights are sold by Lagardère Sports on behalf of the AFC. Controversies Australia vs. Palestine Many ticket-holding fans were locked out of the Group B match between Palestine and Australia, with management closing a number of Rashid Stadium gates before the start of the match “in the interests of fan safety”. Rashid Stadium was one of the smallest stadiums in the tournament with only 12,000 seats and many non-ticket holding fans attempted to watch the match without buying tickets. The organizing committee issued a statement for the reasons of closure stating “Ahead of kick-off a large crowd of fans with and without tickets had gathered over a short period of time outside the stadium, which resulted in the need to secure the area." They then issued an apology to supporters who were “inconvenienced or left disappointed” and issued an investigative probe to insure it to be an isolated incident. Qatar travel complications As a result of Qatar diplomatic crisis between Qatar and number of its neighbours since 5 June 2017, including the United Arab Emirates as the host country, the UAE suspended all direct flights between the two countries and initially banned Qatari citizens from entering their country, although the Emirati government later announced that it would permit Qatari citizens temporary entry into the country pending approval from Emirati authorities. According to a report, Saoud al-Mohannadi, a Qatari national who is the AFC vice-president and chairman