Paris (AFP)
Mediapro, the major broadcaster of Ligue 1 wishing to revise its contract downward, has taken Canal + to court, accusing it of trying to oust it from the French football TV rights market, we learned Thursday from a source having knowledge of the file.
The Sino-Spanish group filed a summons last week with the Paris Commercial Court to ask Canal + for damages in the context of the negotiations following the call for tenders for Ligue 1 rights for the 2020 period. -2024, we learned from the same source who requested anonymity.
Mediapro accuses Canal of "abuse of a dominant position" and "abusive and unfair practices", according to the same source.
Asked by AFP, Canal + declined to comment.
At the heart of the conflict, the impossibility according to Mediapro to seal any distribution agreement with the encrypted channel since the conclusion of the call for tenders.
In this case, Canal + had already taken Mediapro to court in September, accusing the Catalan group with Chinese capital of "unequal treatment" compared to other distributors, in negotiations for the distribution of Téléfoot, the channel of Mediapro.
In 2018, Mediapro obtained 80% of Ligue 1 TV rights for 780 million euros per year for the period 2020-2024.
But after paying its first payment to the League in August, Mediapro refused to pay the 172 million euros expected in October, demanding to revise the terms of the contract downwards due to the health crisis.
The League and Mediapro have been engaged since October 19 in a conciliation process with the commercial court of Nanterre, the objective being to reach a solution as quickly as possible, while on December 5, the date of the next payment due by Mediapro , approach.
Until now, Mediapro had not managed to find an agreement with the encrypted channel, the other broadcaster of the L1, neither for a sub-license of certain matches, nor for the distribution of its Téléfoot channel by the platforms. of Canal +.
At the end of October, Mediapro had thus announced a figure of 600,000 subscribers for its Téléfoot channel, far from the 3.5 million that the group aims in the long term to make its project profitable.
© 2020 AFP