2023-09-25 20:34:26
A letter of refusal, an offended press release: the war between the French television group Canal+ and the Professional Football League (LFP) resumed with a vengeance on Monday September 25 with the announcement by the encrypted channel that it would not participate in the auctions for the broadcast of French football.
The historic partner of football
The historic partner of French football initially renounced the call for tenders, the conditions of which “have convinced us that your only objective was to exclude Canal+ and favor Amazon”wrote Maxime Saada, the chairman of the board of directors of the Canal+ group, in a letter revealed by The Team.
Solicited all day and initially silent, the leaders of the LFP ended up responding at the end of the day in a press release in which they “regret(s)” the decision of Canal+ and denounce “statements or insinuations (…) of particular gravity”.
This remark highlights the most scathing passage in the letter from No. 1 of Canal+, which envisages that the LFP is targeting “failure” of its process to “free from the legal constraint of a call for applications in order to be able to once again negotiate directly and under perfectly opaque conditions the allocation of rights”.
Relationships “degraded” with the League
“Our relations with the LFP have deteriorated significantly over the years”writes Maxime Saada, who accuses the League of having leaked The Team the amounts proposed by Canal for the call for tenders in June 2021. “The confidentiality thus violated allowed Amazon” to get “80% of matches at low prices”he continues, accusing the League: “You have constantly penalized Canal+. »
The encrypted channel felt aggrieved after the bankruptcy of broadcaster Mediapro in October 2020 because it believed that its lot of two matches per day, paid 332 million euros, was now overvalued compared to what Prime Video paid for the eight other matches (250 million euros) bought from the failing Spanish company.
The L1 having gone from 20 to 18 clubs this summer, there are now nine matches per day and no longer ten. In its press release, the LFP certifies “maximum transparency for all candidates” et “process integrity”. Above all, she protests against Canal’s methods and “regrets (…) the process of publicly disclosing the terms of this letter, in order to harm the marketing process as well as the interests of the LFP”.
Auctions on October 17
This open-air brawl constitutes a first hitch in the billion-euro plan thought up by Vincent Labrune. The president of the LFP is targeting this annual sum for TV rights for the period 2024-2029, the auction of which must take place on October 17.
He lost one of his main potential bidders, put off in particular by a starting price set at 800 million euros per season: 530 million euros for the main lot, with three matches per day including the first two posters, and 270 million euros for the other six matches.
This is the second time that the pay channel, partner of the French Championship since its launch in 1984, has not participated in a call for tenders for the L1. She had already ignored the one on the re-attribution of the Mediapro lot, failing in October 2020, and finally falling to Prime Video, the Amazon channel.
Other broadcasters
Canal still has the possibility of broadcasting L1 for the next five seasons through its new agreement with DAZN, a sports streaming platform which has expressed interest in the call for tenders.
Despite the withdrawal of its historic partner, the LFP still counts on beIN Sports, holder of the rights to the two matches that Canal broadcasts following a partnership between them, Prime Video, the Amazon channel, which broadcasts the eight other matches or possible new players, like Apple, which bought the North American Championship (MLS) for ten seasons, to reach the dream billion.
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