Give a red card to the TV people: AFN has been denied the rights to broadcast the World Cup.

Servicemembers and their families wanting to tune in will have to rely on host-nation coverage.

American Forces Network sent out a release late Thursday saying that despite exhaustive efforts to acquire the rights to the games, it was unable to get permission.

“Because commercial broadcast licenses were sold around the world on an exclusive basis,” AFN official Tom Weber was quoted as saying, “the underlying international rights holder was legally bound and, therefore, unable to grant AFN permission to distribute selected events, to include all Team USA matches, from this year’s Cup.”