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A Liverpool-Barcelona poster could end up on BeIn sport or Canal + holders of the rights of the Champions League. Reuters / Carl Recine

A thunderclap in the French media-sports landscape: the Champions League will be back on Canal Plus and BeIn Sport in 2021. The two private TV channels had to take out the big check.

By scooping all the French rights to the two European Football Cups, Champions League and Europa League, for the period 2018-2021, RMC Sport had signed its entry into the market by striking a big blow.

Three years later, the time for revenge has come: Canal Plus and BeIn Sport have joined forces to recover the baby. At Canal Plus, the two main posters per day, in BeIn, the rest of the matches. TF1 playing the 3rd partner of the alliance by broadcasting the final of the Champions League in clear.

Mediapro talks about " shenanigans "

All this for a cost of 375 million euros annually; 60 million euros more than the price paid by Altice, the owner of RMC Sport. An inflation that shows that the fight was hot, a second round of proposals was even necessary to decide between the initial 4 candidates.

RMC Sport, the outgoing, is not the only big loser in the affair, the ambitious Sino-Spanish group Mediapro was hoping to make a double blow in France after having already won the vast majority of Ligue 1 matches against 780 million euros annually.

Mediapro has not said its last word, his Catalan boss, Chaume Raoures evokes " shenanigans " and intends to attack the UEFA in justice.