World Cup: Malcolm Turnbull intervenes in streaming nightmare, urging Optus to deliver

World Cup: Malcolm Turnbull intervenes in streaming nightmare, urging Optus to deliver

The Prime Minister has intervened in the Optus World Cup streaming fiasco amid growing fury from fans.

Optus Sport holds the exclusive rights for most World Cup matches but has struggled to broadcast games on its website and mobile applications.

Malcolm Turnbull spoke to the telco's chief executive Allen Lew this afternoon.

For the second straight day, Mr Lew flagged a quick technical fix.

"He assures me he is giving the World Cup streaming problems his personal attention and he believes it will be fixed this evening," Mr Turnbull said.

"He obviously acknowledges they've had some real problems with streaming from the Optus platform.

"He believes he can fix it, believes it will be fixed tonight, and obviously Australian soccer fans will be expecting Optus to deliver in that regard."

Many Optus Sport subscribers have been unable to watch live games amid connection issues, dropouts and other faults during the tournament's opening days.

Free-to-air network SBS is televising selected matches, including all Socceroos games, semi-finals and the final.

Former Socceroo Robbie Slater said the Government should intervene to ensure all matches were shown on SBS.

Fellow former Socceroo Paul Wade said "we are so mad as a football community", agreeing the World Cup needed to be broadcast on free-to-air.

Fifield says it's Optus's issue to fix

Earlier today, Communications Minister Mitch Fifield was careful to avoid criticising Optus.

"It's for Optus to talk to their platform and how they will fix that," Senator Fifield said.

"The onus is absolutely on Optus to deliver to consumers — to their customers — that which they've undertaken to deliver."

Optus charges $15 a month for subscriptions to the service.

In a statement this, an Optus spokesman said work was underway "around the clock" to fix the problems.

"Regrettably Optus experienced technical issues during the Costa Rica v Serbia match of the FIFA World Cup on Sunday night which affected some customers," he said.

"Fortunately, we were able to improve the viewing experience for customers for the subsequent Germany v Mexico and Brazil v Switzerland games.

"We know that the majority of customers are having a good broadcast experience during the World Cup."

Three games will be played on Monday night and Tuesday morning (AEST), including a clash between Sweden and South Korea at 10pm which will not be shown on SBS.