Maxime Saada, in the columns of "Figaro", announced Tuesday evening that Canal + returned its rights to Ligue 1 before a global call for tenders.

For our editorialist Virginie Phulpin, this corresponds to the last step in the takeover of broadcasters in French football, which is a bad thing.

EDITORIAL

The series of twists and turns of French football TV rights continues.

Canal + announced Tuesday that it was restoring its rights to Ligue 1 (two matches per day) to the Professional Football League, asking for a new call for tenders.

Basically, the chain considers the product not worth much and wants to pay less.

This is what emerges from the interview with Maxime Saada, the president of the management board of Canal +, at

Le Figaro

.

For the sports columnist of Europe 1, Virginie Phulpin, this proves that football cannot live solely on TV rights.

"With this episode, we realize that the broadcaster has the right of life or death on French football. And this is the consequence of the greed of the League in 2018, during the previous call for tenders. The clubs will pay a high price for having yielded to the mirages of a championship to a billion euros, and for having based their future solely on a broadcaster who turned out to be deadbeat.

Today, the real boss of French football is Maxime Saada.

The chairman of the board of Canal + has not digested the way in which the channel, a historic football broadcaster, has been treated by the Professional Football League.

He does not do in the feelings.

His observation is severe: Mediapro's flashover made our championship lose all value, he said in substance.

The balance of power is reversed

It's hard to face it, but on this Maxime Saada is right.

Téléfoot has never gathered many viewers.

Either we do not see the matches, or we watch them in illegal streaming.

Our football has become invisible, so inevitably it is not worth much.

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Meanwhile, Canal + has diversified its sports offering and it works.

In fact, the balance of power has been reversed.

The League acted as if the television channels needed the French football championship to live and behaved like a diva.

Except that the exact opposite is happening.

To rely only on TV rights without questioning itself at any time, it is football that is at the mercy of broadcasters.

The chains make it rain and shine.

And in this case, the weather is rather stormy.

An unequal "pay per view"

The main concern concerns the small Ligue 1 clubs. When you have an economic model which is based only on the broadcaster, oh surprise, a PSG-OM will always count more than a Dijon-Nîmes, necessarily.

And one realizes it well with the turning of the sentences of Maxime Saada in

Le Figaro

.

The leader speaks of the lack of attractiveness of the championship.

According to him, Ligue 1 does not generate enough revenue to support all the clubs.

Its solution to avoid the black screen between the moment when Canal + will surrender its rights and the outcome of the new call for tenders is

pay per view

.

Everyone can buy a match on demand and the money will then be redistributed to the League and therefore to the clubs.

It is a real threat for small clubs which do not have the audience of Lyon or PSG.

This proves that we have reached the end of the road.

If we want to defend French football as a whole, we cannot rely solely on the broadcasters.

They don't have the same priorities. "