Paris (AFP)

The TV rights series of Ligue 1, in search of a sustainable broadcaster after the Mediapro fiasco, may be coming to an end: a decision by the Competition Authority on Friday could accelerate an agreement with Canal + and beIN, according to sources close to the negotiations.

The encrypted channel, which took on the role of the savior of French football this winter by buying back at a cut price the remaining rights at the end of the season after the withdrawal of the broadcaster Mediapro, is very likely on the way to winning its bet.

The urgency in which the L1 finds itself, without a broadcaster within 2 months of the resumption of the 2021-2022 season in early August, with clubs having to present a budget consistent with their television revenues on June 14 in front of the DNCG, leaves little leeway for French football, little helped by a disaster market and the reluctance of other potential broadcasters.

"Canal has been negotiating with the LFP and with beIN for months, and clubs from elsewhere are asking. They realize that a priori there really is no other choice but to resign with them", explains a source close to the negotiations.

- "Saada has the power" -

An important obstacle should be lifted on Friday by the Competition Authority, seized by Canal + which accused the LFP of "an abuse of a dominant position" in its mode of reallocation of rights abandoned by Mediapro.

This decision, expected Friday morning, should "clear the legal horizon", according to another source close to the negotiations, and accelerate an agreement, probably during the day Friday.

"This is the only possible timing," assured this source.

What about the hypothesis of a last minute guest who would outbid to prevent Canal + and beIN from winning the bid?

"Even the LFP no longer believes in it," assures AFP Pierre Maes, author of a book on football TV rights.

However Wednesday evening, the boss of Canal + Maxime Saada, guest of the radio RMC, tried to re-instill suspense in a negotiation which seems devoid of it.

"I am not sure" that the L1 "will be on Canal + next year," he said, listing all the operators who have come to compete with the encrypted channel in recent years.

# photo1

"It is part of the negotiation game to create a threat. Saada has the power and he shows that he has the power", analyzes Pierre Maes.

Canal +, which has already obtained part of what it wanted with the reduction of the L1 to 18 clubs by 2023 (supposed to offer a tighter elite and better posters), only wants the best matches of the L1, and seems having convinced beIN to join forces so that the Qatari channel broadcasts the rest.

"If we manage to set up a device with Canal and beIN, we would broadcast the entire Ligue 1 experience," said Maxime Saada on Thursday.

The hypothesis of an ad hoc channel launched by the League to accompany Canal +, presented in May to the board of directors of the LFP, "does not hold the cord", according to one of the sources close to the negotiations.

- "The product has deteriorated" -

As for the price, the LFP should expect to find a lifestyle far from the 1.1 billion euros per season that the Sino-Spanish group had dangled.

"I think the contract signed with Mediapro was a mistake, because the amounts were decorrelated from a reality," French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday in an interview on BFM TV and RMC.

"I wish that there could be an exit from the top of this subject, that (the clubs) can find viable figures for everyone", he argued, symbol of the recurring interest of power policy in recent decades for this thorny issue.

The final amount of the new contract will in any case be significantly lower: "We will not be very far from previous cycles," promised Maxime Saada.

"The average has been 650 million euros per year since 2005."

"TV rights will be divided by 2", already anticipates Pierre Maes.

"Will it change the level of French football? Have we seen the level of French football explode upwards with the Mediapro money that the clubs had budgeted? The last European club campaign of L1 has shown it. L1 has remained a transitional championship, "he says.

© 2021 AFP