Paris (AFP)
The failure of the call for tenders for the re-allocation of TV rights to Ligue 1 places French football in a delicate situation, between strategic choices to be stopped, legal uncertainty to be managed and broadcaster to be found for Marseille-Paris SG Sunday.
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What options for the League?
The Professional Football League (LFP) gave itself 48 hours on Monday evening to define its strategy, after a board of directors of just a few minutes, during which several voices were raised to ask for more explanations from the leaders, according to a source familiar with the matter.
A few moments earlier, the LFP had recognized that its market consultation, launched to reallocate the meetings abandoned in December by the failing broadcaster Mediapro (80% of L1 and L2), was unsuccessful.
According to the terms of the procedure, consulted by AFP, it is expected in this case that the LFP will "immediately initiate discussions by mutual agreement relating to all or part of the unallocated rights (...) with any person that either, including in particular any candidate or other interested actor ".
Amazon, the DAZN streaming platform and the Discovery group (Eurosport), all three candidates on Monday but whose offers were not considered sufficient, can therefore be relaunched in the coming days.
The device also allows professional football leaders to negotiate with Canal + and beIN Sports, the two major absentees from the call for tenders.
A global offer of 590 million euros for all of Ligue 1 had been mentioned by the encrypted channel at the end of 2020, according to several sources.
But nothing guarantees that this proposal will always hold, nor that Canal + is ready to negotiate by mutual agreement.
Launching a global call for tenders, which Canal + wants, is also an option for the League.
Major drawback: it would thus draw a line on most of its current audiovisual revenues, the EUR 330 million annually paid by Canal +.
Advantage: the encrypted channel should finally play its cards on the table against the ambitions of new players.
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What are Canal + and beIN Sports playing?
As for Canal +, this lack of an offer on Monday was hardly in doubt: the Vivendi subsidiary wishes to return the batch of matches that it currently broadcasts via a sub-license agreement signed with beIN Sports (20% of L1) , before positioning itself.
He has also filed appeals to this effect with the Paris Commercial Court and the Competition Authority.
BeIN Sports, for its part, seems to have aligned itself with Canal +, even if its position is delicate, between a Ligue 1 dear to the boss Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, also president of Paris SG, and an exclusive distribution agreement signed with Canal.
"There is no way beIN will agree to find itself alone to cover all the risks if Canal wants to return the rights", judges a market expert.
On the other hand, the Qatari channel has not filed an appeal on its side and did not plan in recent days to request the restitution of the rights of the Ligue 2 matches it broadcasts, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The behavior of the two channels is likely to be scrutinized in the coming days, because the League awaits Friday the payment of the February deadline, due by Canal + ...
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Which broadcaster for Marseille-PSG?
The other short-term emergency is to find a broadcaster for the 24th day of Ligue 1 and Ligue 2, scheduled for this weekend.
For the 23rd day scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, Téléfoot, the Mediapro channel, continues to broadcast and is ready to play extra time afterwards, in view in particular of the Ligue 1 "Classic" between Marseille and Paris SG, Sunday at 9:00 pm.
But the League has also received for several weeks other proposals from channels offering their services for free.
This is for example the case of M6, who reiterated his interest on Monday via his boss Nicolas de Tavernost.
Canal + had also offered a "pay per view" solution on its platforms.
At the beginning of January, an agreement was reached between the LFP and Canal for the co-broadcasting of the Champions Trophy with Téléfoot.
Given the conflict, can the League afford to take another step towards the encrypted channel?
© 2021 AFP