Paris (AFP)
The Spanish group Mediapro, future broadcaster of Ligue 1, announced Wednesday that it has acquired most of the television rights in France from the Europa League and the future Europa Conference, the little sisters of the Champions League, for the period 2021- 2024.
This decision has the air of revenge for Mediapro less than three weeks after the attribution of the rights of the most prestigious of the European competitions, for which the group led by the Catalan Jaume Roures had been combed on the wire by Canal + and beIN Sports.
In total, the future Mediapro channel dedicated to football, which is to be launched for the start of the next Ligue 1 season in the summer of 2020, will broadcast 260 European matches per season, for an amount which has not been specified. Canal + announced the obtaining of broadcasting rights for the pay channels of the best poster of the Europa League or the Europa Conference Conference every day.
"This acquisition makes it possible to add premium content to the very attractive offer that the channel had already planned to launch in the summer of 2020, with a program exclusively dedicated to continuous football," Mediapro said in a press release.
This attribution comes less than three weeks after that of the broadcasting rights of the Champions League in France, an attribution disputed by Mediapro which denounced by the voice of its boss, Jaume Roures, a "not clear" procedure.
The Spanish group has aroused suspicion in the French football community about the contours of its future channel, still in the making almost seven months before the start of the next Ligue 1 season.
The absence of details on the Mediapro project, if not a subscription fee of 25 euros per month and the appointment of its new managing director, Julien Bergeaud, fueled a climate of doubt, while Mediapro s was seen withdrawing the rights of the Italian Serie A, for failure to guarantee payment.
But the Professional Football League (LFP) reiterated Thursday its confidence in the group of Jaume Roures.
Mediapro had made a remarkable entry into the hexagonal football landscape by putting no less than 800 million euros on the table to afford the essential posters of each day of Ligue 1, rejecting the sidelines the historic broadcaster Canal +.
© 2019 AFP