2023-11-22 22:38:33
This Thursday, the Professional Football League (LFP) convenes the professional clubs for a general meeting (by videoconference) in advance. Initially, an ordinary AGM was to be held on December 7. However, the Le Havre club (HAC) filed two summons to the Paris Judicial Court in mid-October targeting the LFP. Consequence: the League was forced to review its calendar.
In its first summons, the HAC aims to fundamentally call into question the agreement entered into between the LFP and the Luxembourg investment fund CVC Capital Partners covering 1.5 billion euros. This appeal will be studied in February. But in the meantime, the HAC requests the suspension of the execution of the CVC-LFP agreement, supporting arguments. This is the meaning of the second summons, this one filed in summary proceedings and arbitrated on November 28.
Also the LFP brought forward its AGM to November 23, in order to get the clubs to vote again in favor of the agreement – as they did unanimously in March 2022. The body would not want to see itself to impose a legal obstacle on November 28 to the 3rd and final payment of CVC to PSG, OM, OL, Monaco, Lille, Rennes and Nice, scheduled for the end of the season. Summary of previous episodes…
Why did CVC Capital Partners invest in French football?
Following the loss of revenue caused by the Covid crisis and the defection of broadcaster Mediapro at the end of 2020, French professional football found itself on the verge of bankruptcy for a time. Also, Vincent Labrune, elected president of the LFP in September 2020, and his teams began looking for new money, a lot of money, to bail out the clubs.
In the spring of 2022, they found it. CVC Capital Partners, a Luxembourg investment fund among the ten most powerful in the world, has committed to paying 1.5 billion euros to the LFP. In return, it transferred to him, without time limit, 13% of the income from a future commercial company intended to promote the interests of French professional football.
Very involved in sport, CVC already owns 13% of the commercial company for the Six Nations Tournament, or 30% of the English rugby championship (“Premiership”). In 2006, CVC was the main shareholder of F1, before reselling its shares at the end of 2016, making a significant profit in the process.
What amounts did the clubs receive?
Starting from a total sum of 1.1 billion euros, the following distribution was retained and validated by all parties for L1 clubs (based on 20 clubs, before the increase to 18): 200 million euros to PSG, 90 million to OL and OM, 80 million to Lille, Monaco, Nice and Rennes, and 33 million euros for each of the other clubs. We are talking about amounts spread over two or three payments depending on the case, starting in 2022.
For comparison, the Spanish La Liga, which also contracted with CVC in 2021, obtained 2 billion euros, compared to 8% of La Liga’s revenues over the next fifty years, knowing that Real Madrid and FC Barcelona are kept out of the agreement.
Why is the HAC calling the agreement into question?
Endowed with 1.5 million euros, the Le Havre club (HAC), promoted and currently 7th in L1, considers itself robbed by the method of distributing the CVC windfall to the clubs. The club chaired by Jean-Michel Roussier believes it will pay the price for a blind spot in the agreement signed in spring 2022. In fact, the HAC, promoted to L1 not in May 2022, in the wake of the signing, but in May 2023, was not eligible for the 33 million euros captured by L1 clubs.
The height of the aberration according to Roussier, the HAC received half as much as its former L2 counterparts. As the texts stand, clubs must demonstrate a continued presence in L2 over the 2021-2022, 2022-2023 and 2023-24 seasons to arrive at a total subsidy of 3 million euros. Which is not the case for Le Havre because it has… moved up to L1. Le Havre leaders conclude that they are unfairly and heavily penalized. They therefore turned to the courts to arbitrate the situation. The HAC also requests, according to information from Le Monde, a postponement of the general assembly scheduled for Thursday.
What do the other clubs think?
If they have remained generally discreet about the agreement between CVC and the LFP, the other French professional clubs, particularly those which have received the least money, could take the opportunity to ask Vincent Labrune for certain explanations on the agreement and its consequences, which perhaps not everyone had assimilated. Particularly on the fact that the deal is “for life”, unlike the one in Spain, signed for fifty years.
“There, it will cost 280 million euros per year, and for life, recently estimated for SoFoot former OM president Christophe Bouchet. Because it must be understood that no end date has been set. CVC will receive a lifetime commission of 13% on all LFP revenues. This is a deadly agreement for French football. »
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