Paris (AFP)

The Sino-Spanish group Mediapro, the main broadcaster of French football, is shaking the ecosystem of Ligue 1 by asking to renegotiate the juicy TV rights, a major resource for clubs with accounts weakened by the pandemic.

The League demands to be paid.

The Professional Football League (LFP) stepped up to the plate on Thursday, announcing in a press release that it "refused to grant a deadline for payment to Mediapro" for the payment due on October 5, indicating that it wished to donate this windfall (172 M EUR according to L'Equipe) at clubs on October 17, as planned.

This position follows the words of Jaume Roures, the boss of Mediapro, having indicated in the sports daily wanting to "re-discuss the contract for this season", which he considers "very affected by the Covid-19".

The announcement comes at a critical time, as the pandemic has already damaged club finances.

At the end of July, a study by the firm EY commissioned by the Premier League clubs union already predicted 605 million euros of loss in turnover due to the end of the championship.

This was without counting the drying up of ticketing revenues caused by the maximum capacity of 5,000 - even 1,000 in the most affected areas - spectators currently in place.

A newcomer to the French landscape, Mediapro in 2018 won the bulk of the rights to Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 for the period 2020-2024, for more than 800 million euros per year, beating the pawn of the historic partner Canal + , in Qatari beIN and in the Altice group (RMC sport).

- "The negotiations will be a bit heated" -

But just over a month after its launch, it's already time to block it.

"On the one hand, you have someone who threatens not to pay, on the other a League which has based its entire budget on these new rights, so inevitably, the negotiations will be a bit heated", observes Luc Arrondel , football economist interviewed by AFP.

Above all, Mediapro leaves the clubs at its mercy, which derive more than a third of their revenue from TV rights (36% for Ligue 1 in 2018-2019 according to the DNCG, financial policeman of French football).

"They made provisional budgets, transfers, the salaries of the players were fixed ... If the money does not arrive, (...) what is likely to happen is that the clubs cannot not pay their players, "warns Luc Arrondel.

Bad omen, especially since the League was already indebted in the spring with a loan guaranteed by the State of 224.5 M EUR, compensating for the shortfall in TV rights from the premature end of the Championship.

And one of the arguments most often put forward by French football leaders in the spring to justify stopping the season, namely the importance of "securing" the new round of television rights and therefore the serene launch of the season 2020-2021, now seems to be falling apart ...

- Crash in sight?

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If Mediapro is "in a strong position" in the negotiations according to Luc Arrondel, the prospects are hardly attractive for the Sino-Spanish group.

“Mediapro is basically an agency. Their initial model was to buy the rights at a very high price and resell them at a profit, speculating on an increase in the market and competition in France. They bet , they lost, "notes Pierre Maes, consultant and author of" Football TV rights business ", interviewed by AFP.

Result, doubts resurface vis-à-vis Mediapro and its pay channel Téléfoot, whose great launch was "lukewarm" in terms of subscriptions according to Jaume Roures to the Team, the Catalan refusing to give figures.

And the football economy, largely based since the 2000s on a continuous increase in TV rights, finds itself faltering with the grim prospect of a "bubble burst".

"Today, the clubs bought their players with the money from Mediapro and offered them long and extremely expensive contracts. Going from this model to a more frugal model is impossible", worries Pierre. Maes.

"For the moment, we are only at a worrying signal, but in the event of failure, I think the clubs will face a Covid power 10 ..."

© 2020 AFP