Paris (AFP)
Legal victory for French football against Canal +: justice ruled Thursday in the Professional Football League on the mode of reallocation of TV rights after the failure of Mediapro, believing that the LFP was not forced to a call for tenders global.
Triumphant when, at the beginning of February, it won all Ligue 1 matches until the end of the season at a knockdown price, the Vivendi group channel suffered a first setback in this interminable crisis of TV rights, this time in court.
According to the decision, of which AFP has obtained a copy, the Paris Commercial Court indeed ruled that the LFP was within its rights by only releasing on the market the TV rights abandoned by the failing Sino-Spanish broadcaster Mediapro, unlike the hypothesis of a global call for tenders desired by Canal +, supported by its partner beIN Sports.
This decision will be enough to relieve the clubs of Ligue 1 and Ligue 2, essential beneficiaries of this precious television windfall: the famous "lot N.3" of the initial call for tenders of 2018, held by Canal + for EUR 332 million annually. until 2024, must not be put back on the market.
- Canal + appealed -
In a press release, Canal + indicated that it would appeal this decision and that it maintained a parallel summons, placed with the Competition Authority and which is to last several months.
"The Canal + Group continues to consider that any call for candidates which excludes lot 3, currently operated by the Canal + Group (under license with beIN Sports, Editor's note), would constitute an abuse of the LFP's dominant position by creating discriminatory transaction conditions between potential buyers ", explains the chain, which estimates the amount of this overvalued lot.
Canal + and beIN Sports had refused to participate in the market consultation - ultimately unsuccessful - conducted by the LFP on February 1, which concerned the lots left vacant by Mediapro, or 80% of Ligue 1 and Ligue 2.
Nevertheless, for justice, "the refusal of the LFP to integrate lot 3 in a call for general candidatures does not have the effect of distorting competition", explains the commercial court which also condemned Canal + to pay 50,000 euros to the LFP.
- Which broadcasters in 2021-22?
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This decision confirms the LFP in its wish to negotiate the vacant rights "over the counter", ie directly with the broadcasters concerned for the next three seasons.
"The LFP hopes that this decision will be likely to reassure all potential candidates" in order to "finalize, as soon as possible, broadcasting agreements for the seasons 2021 to 2024", she reacted in a communicated.
This concerns, on the one hand, the groups that applied for the market consultation of February 1 (Amazon, Discovery for its Eurosport channel and the DAZN streaming platform), but does not exclude Canal + or beIN Sports, even if the encrypted channel must henceforth include in its budget a significant expenditure of 332 M EUR ...
Another option, at the end of the season, launch a new market consultation on the remaining 80% of L1 and L2, hoping to raise the stakes thanks to the potential participation of Canal + and beIN this time.
For the current season, which ends in the spring, Canal + and the LFP had reached an agreement on February 4, which granted the Vivendi group channel all of the remaining rights for the L1 season, for 35 million euros. euros in addition to what Canal + already had to pay in the pre-existing contract.
The commercial court also noted in its judgment that the encrypted channel had signed this agreement "by mutual agreement (...) without considering that this agreement would be a violation of competition law".
Domestic TV rights, initially expected at 1.217 billion euros per year for L1 and L2, fell, for the 2020-2021 season, to around 683 million euros after the failure of Mediapro and the closure of its ephemeral channel. Telefoot.
© 2021 AFP