Paris (AFP)
The standoff between the LFP (Professional Football League) and Mediapro has not yet found a way out, and if some actors are active behind the scenes, the scenario of an exit from the crisis is still struggling to materialize.
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When will French football be fixed?
A conciliation is underway with the commercial court of Nanterre between the LFP and Mediapro.
"It freezes the positions", and suddenly prevents for the moment the LFP to denounce the contract, assures a source close to the file.
This procedure can in theory last up to five months but several media assure that the conciliator has planned to deliver his conclusions as of December 7, that is to say two days after the third deadline that Mediapro is supposed to pay to the LFP, in the amount of 152.5 M EUR according to L'Equipe.
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Is there a chance that Mediapro will pay its next installment?
A priori none.
The Sino-Spanish group considers that the deadlines do not "make much sense" in the context of the conciliation process which suspends all commitments.
Already constrained in October to a short-term loan of EUR 120 million to compensate for the absence of the October payment of EUR 172.3 million, the League may have to repeat the process.
In any case, it has already subscribed to an additional option of EUR 180 million with its funding body whose identity has not been filtered, according to the minutes of its last general meeting.
Can she go on like this for long?
In any case, interest must be taken into account, because the remuneration of this first loan is located at 5.5%.
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Can Canal Plus be the key?
According to RMC, discussions are already taking place between Canal Plus and the LFP.
The encrypted channel, questioned by AFP, declined to comment.
If nothing seems to be able to be started concretely before the end of the conciliation, several club presidents, including Jean-Pierre Caillot and Waldemar Kita, have indicated that they want Canal to be integrated in the future.
"I would be very happy and very happy if Canal came back", the Nantes president told RMC, "but we have to respect the schedule".
Jean-Michel Aulas also mentioned during an interview with AFP a possible solution "around Canal".
The conciliation "may help" find a sublicense agreement between Mediapro and other broadcasters, according to a connoisseur of the matter.
But relations are quite fresh between Canal Plus and Mediapro.
"It is the war between the two since Canal was stolen the rights", explains a source close to the LFP.
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What outcomes for conciliation?
Mediapro has explained several times that it wants to "discuss the modalities of the 2020-21 season", and only this one.
But the group has said nothing else about its intentions, even if the daily L'Equipe says it would like a rebate of 170 to 200 million EUR for this season, on the more than 800 million EUR owed by Mediapro this season.
While the discussions remain confidential, some astute observers single out several possible outcomes to the conflict.
First option: a rebate could be granted to the broadcaster.
"But that would imply granting a similar one to all the other partners", slips a regular of the instances.
Another outcome: an "exit clause" which would provide for the renunciation of Mediapro, the payment by the broadcaster of an exit allowance in exchange for the assurance that the League will not take him to court.
In this case, a new call for tenders may be set up.
Finally, if no agreement is found, there will be only the legal route left for the League to obtain its payments after a long trial.
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Will politics get involved?
Emmanuel Macron was clear on Tuesday during a meeting with the world of sport.
"I think there are enough historical players to find a solution between the partners", he explained according to several media.
End of inadmissibility, the football authorities will have to fend for themselves.
The Minister of National Education and Sports Jean-Michel Blanquer, however, warned Wednesday on RMC that the State will "be very careful that no club goes bankrupt in L1".
The President of the Republic took the opportunity on Tuesday to tackle the LFP about the contract with Mediapro concluded in 2018. "We had alerted the league. We knew that this contract was fragile," he assured.
"I think the people who negotiated it weren't very serious."
Comments aimed directly at the former president of the LFP Nathalie Boy de la Tour, and the former general manager Didier Quillot.
The latter assured L'Equipe that "the League has never received either note or alert from the Elysee on the fragility of Mediapro".
© 2020 AFP