Paris (AFP)

The Téléfoot channel, the new major broadcaster of Ligue 1 and Ligue 2, will be launched on August 17, four days before the championship resumes on August 21, the Mediapro group announced on Tuesday, which promises new distribution agreements.

The Spanish company with Chinese capital, which announced Monday a distribution agreement with SFR, a subsidiary of the Altice group, allowing it in particular to co-broadcast the Champions League in 2020-2021 and to be available on the SFR boxes, has specified Tuesday at a press conference the contours of its launch, with a "complete offer at the best possible price on the market" according to its boss Jaume Roures.

After the license agreement with TF1 which allows it to use the Téléfoot brand, named after the program created in 1977 on the first channel, and that with SFR, other agreements with distributors or audiovisual players are also being finalized, he said.

"We are going to announce agreements with people who are not traditional distributors. We are not going to stay in the tradition because the reality is quite different," said Mr. Roures, while several media reported negotiations advances with Facebook.

As for the Téléfoot editorial team, which will number around 150 full-time people, "our dream casting is complete," said Julien Bergeaud, Managing Director of Mediapro France, without revealing any names.

- Between 25 and 30 euros per month -

In addition, a pre-registration website must be launched this Tuesday for future subscribers to the offer which will be offered at 25.90 euros with a one-year commitment, or 29.90 euros without commitment.

This price "is totally attractive, and particularly interesting for fans who will have for the first time the possibility of following all of these competitions (80% of L1 and L2 until 2024, 100% of the League of champions and Europa League in 2020-21, Editor's note) on a single channel, "said Julien Bergeaud.

This agreement with Altice for the co-broadcasting of the European Cups, which according to L'Equipe will cost Mediapro 175 million euros (in addition to the annual 800 million euros of the French championships), has however not pushed the leaders of the group to revise their goals upwards.

"We have always explained that the goal was to reach 3.5 million subscribers, but that does not mean that we will have them the first month or even the first season (...) Our costs have not not necessarily increased: we increased the base of our subscribers, "said Jaume Roures, relying on the base of" 770,000 football fans "that SFR has.

Ligue 1 will resume on the Téléfoot channel on August 21 at 7:00 p.m. with the Marseille-Saint-Etienne match, poster for the 1st day.

© 2020 AFP