Paris (AFP)
Deprived of football after the cessation of competitions due to the pandemic, subscribers to Canal + and beIN gathered from Tuesday in a collective action and asked the channels for financial compensation, according to a press release.
"A legal action against each channel will be brought by means of a summons on behalf of the subscribers registered in the collective action before the competent courts", announced Vpourverdict, the Lyon start-up which connects the subscribers and the two lawyers in charge of the case.
"CANAL + and beIN sports subscribers have been deprived of Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 matches which should have been broadcast between March 14 and the end of May, without any financial compensation being offered to them", continued the platform launched in July 2018.
"What shocks subscribers is that a broadcaster says that it does not pay TV rights to the league following the cessation of competitions, but that it does not return this amount to subscribers" , Vincent Durand, from Active Avocats in Lyon, told AFP.
"Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, we will have more than 1,000 customers", the threshold requested to start negotiations with the channels and eventually the legal proceedings, he assured.
If the approach is successful, subscribers who have registered for the action with a participation of 5 euros will be able to keep the amount recovered from their subscription or to donate it to the Ligue 1 or Ligue 2 club of their choice.
Following the cessation of competition decided against the coronavirus pandemic, professional clubs experienced a stir in April with Canal + and BeIN who decided to suspend the payment of TV rights for France.
An agreement was reached at the end of April after negotiations between a delegation of four L1 presidents, including Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, both boss of Paris SG and beIN, and the two broadcasters, who agreed to pay for the matches already disputed.
TV rights, which represented almost 36% of L1 club revenues for the 2018-2019 season, are by far their biggest source of income, according to the report of the DNCG, the financial gendarme of French football.
© 2020 AFP