Paris (AFP)
Canal + has acquired the rights to broadcast in France the best Europa League poster for 2021-2024, announced his boss Maxime Saada, confirming the recent counter-attack of the chain on sports rights after the Champions League and Ligue 1 .
"As happiness never comes alone, I confirm that the best Europa League poster will be on Canal + from 2021", wrote the chairman of the executive board of the group on his Twitter account, without specifying the amount disbursed to the UEFA to broadcast these matches of the "small" European Cup.
This acquisition comes to fill a little more the football grid of the encrypted channel, filled these last weeks by the reconquest of a part of the rights of the Champions League then an unexpected agreement to recover two posters of Ligue 1 each weekend.
According to the website of the French daily L'Equipe, UEFA has yet to find buyers for other prizes related to the Europa League and Europa League Conference meetings, the future third European Cup launched in 2021.
Contacted by AFP, UEFA has not commented.
After several disappointments on the TV rights market, Canal + had already obtained a nice revenge at the end of November by winning the broadcast of the two best posters of each day of C1, as well as the final and the Supercoupe of Europe, from 2021.
Then the channel sealed a surprise deal with its beIN Sports rival for nearly 330 million euros, recovering from the Qatari channel the broadcast of two matches per day of Ligue 1 from the summer of 2020.
With these multiple theatrical moves, Canal + is making a big comeback on the French football rights market, which had become more and more fragmented in recent years for the benefit of new players such as Mediapro (which won the main prize of L1), or RMC Sports (Altice), which had acquired the rights of the Champions League in the previous UEFA call for tenders.
© 2019 AFP