How could French football have failed at this point with Mediapro?

Jean-Michel Aulas, Didier Quillot, Nathalie Boy de la Tour, in March 2017. -

• Mediapro, which refused to honor the second expiry of its contract with the LFP, was chosen to everyone's surprise as the L1 broadcaster in 2018.

• Didier Quillot and the club presidents, blinded by the success of the call for tenders, did not feel they had to take the necessary precautions in the event of payment defaults.

• Now at the foot of the wall, the LFP will no doubt have to turn to other broadcasters, with the risk of recovering much less than the billion euros withdrawn in 2018.

In his immaculate white sneakers and his beautiful black down jacket, Jean-Pierre Rivère jokes with a Jean-Michel Aulas in heaven.

In the euphoria of the moment, the Lyon president even forgot that he could not supervise his Guingamp-native counterpart Bertrand Desplat, sitting on the chair next door.

Only Michel Denisot retains the calm that we know him.

The great French football family, gathered on May 29, 2018 in the premises of the Professional Football League, seems to carry with it a guoguenarde conviction.

In a few moments, Didier Quillot is about to confirm the crazy news that has been running since morning.

"A blessed day for French football"

At the end of a call for tenders launched in the Cossack at the end of April, the League has just won the jackpot by obtaining more than one billion euros for all the Ligue 1-Ligue 2 TV rights!

60% increase compared to the previous contract.

"A blessed day for French football", exclaims JMA, even more enthusiastic a few days later during the General Assembly of the League, during which he speaks on behalf of Noël Le Graët, excused for reasons health: "This message is addressed to Nathalie [Boy de la Tour], as well as to Didier [Quillot] - and I will add Mathieu [Ficot] who effectively participated in this negotiation of television rights -, to say that the Federation is delighted with this achievement.

" He pursues :

Congratulations to the entire League team for having succeeded, in an uncertain context, after waiting for the right moment, something great, which will allow clubs and in general professional football and all football to develop effectively ”.

Mediapro has just entered the fold.

And no one, then, to carry the slightest reservation on this new and generous donor of the League of Talents, who won the piece by offering 814 million euros per year (in addition to 320 for BeIn and 50 for Free on consolation prizes).

Finally, yes, Maxime Saada, the boss of Canal, who wonders if Spanish society has strong backs, but it happens to be a sore loser.

We do not even find any trace of the official ratification report of the result of the call for tenders by the board of directors of the LFP, as is however the rule.

It was the time of the big slaps on the back and laudatory portraits of Didier Quillot, proud as a cockerel.

The latter does not bother to attend the hearing ordered at the end of June 2018 by Aurore Bergé, in charge of audiovisual regulation issues.

He sends Julien Taieb, his head of legal affairs.

Where has the bank guarantee gone?

During this hearing that

was able to watch, the deputy LREM shares some concerns with her interlocutor.

She read the questions of the economic press on the financial stability of a group which would not have real equity.

Didn't Mediapro just renounce the rights to Series A for not having provided the necessary financial guarantees?

Taieb cannot be dismantled: “In Italy, Mediapro was granted the rights with a view to re-marketing them subsequently because they had bought all the rights.

Except that a competitor [Sky] sued, believing that Mediapro did not have the right to re-issue a call for tenders by redistributing the lots, and the competition authority canceled the deal.

"

It was then that the Italian League, to get out of the trap, would have requested a bank guarantee from the Spanish group, knowing that it was impossible.

“We don't get a bank guarantee on an amount of 3 billion.

We can, but it is very, very expensive, ”continues Taieb.

It was never a habit around the house, anyway, including when surprise operators like TPS took the loot in 1999.

"We are talking about much lower sums, with French players," defends Jean-Pierre Louvel, who has participated in several steering committees for calls for tenders from the LFP in the past.

There have been guarantees requested from some, but I cannot guarantee that they are bank guarantees.

It is the services of the League that take care of it, and we were informed that we were insured against a risk of default.

"

The League has not met the Mediapro shareholder

The presidents of L1 follow the League with their eyes closed.

And those who come out of line are reprimanded as in kindergarten.

Thus, Bernard Caiazzo, forced to publish a word of apology in September 2018, after having expressed (slight) doubts about the solvency of the new championship broadcaster in

.

“I have no doubts about Mediapro's ability to provide exceptional quality service, blah blah blah.

"

While Mediapro does nothing at the European Cup, they emerge more confident than ever from their interview with Jaume Roures a little over a year later, in December 2019. The Trotskyite tycoon, who answers in French with just the the right Spanish accent, knows how to charm the audience.

His power point is so convincing that the absence of a bank guarantee is not even addressed!

“At the moment, this is not a concern for the clubs.

», Evacuates Claude Michy, president of the UCPF.

“The contract will be paid.

French football has nothing to worry about ”, supports Noël le Graët, with a certainty that leaves you speechless.

Jaume Roures during his stint at the LFP in December 2019. - FRANCK FIFE / AFP

Everyone seems to be content with the joint guarantee of the Chinese group Orient Hontai Capital (OHC), which has since become a majority shareholder of Mediapro with 53% of the shares.

Sufficient to cover itself in the event of non-payment from Mediapro?

Not really, judge Pierre Maes, author of the book

published by Broché: “If there is a default in payment, the shareholder is bound by all obligations.

So in itself, the guarantee is very strong, but it is obviously necessary that the one who gives this guarantee is solvent.

We can have the best surety in the world, if behind it is a cardboard surety, it is inoperative ”.

Is this the case with OHC?

"I have never met them", recognizes in June 2018 Didier Quillot to

, he who however boasted of having sold the L1 by holding more "than sixty meetings" before launching his call for 'offers.

"They had no intention of setting up a chain at all"

Its director of legal affairs, however, wants to be optimistic in front of Aurore Bergé: “I cannot, and the League cannot, at this stage, say to itself that Mediapro is lying and that things are going to go badly without good tangible reason to believe it.

"Julien Taieb, who also advises the PSG, however explains to the deputy working on the" contractualization of the obligation for Mediapro to provide the League with a bank guarantee if they default on payment ".

Has this condition been formalized in the tender specifications?

The LFP did not answer us on this point.

But we can doubt it in view of the turn of events.

Another element should have alerted the leaders of L1 and L2 after signing the contract with Mediapro: the time taken to build the Téléfoot television channel.

While the French championship was supposed to start on June 18, the channel did not emit the signal until the 17th, the day before.

"Initially they had no intention of setting up a channel, it is a speech they made because the LFP needed to be reassured on this point", estimates Arnaud Simon, former general manager. of Eurosport and specialist in sports rights negotiations.

“Their mission was to set up a chain but it was not an absolute obligation.

So for a year and a half, I know from a reliable source, Mediapro started a lot of discussions to sublicense the TV rights with French and international players.

"

The mirage of 3.5 million subscribers

Discussions that never ended, forcing the group to set up a chain in a hurry.

Several journalists defectors from Téléfoot were contacted in the spring of 2020, only a few weeks before the resumption.

"This is proof that Mediapro knew, after having made its calculations, that its pay channel project would not hold up," engages sports economist Jean-Pascal Gayant.

I'm not even talking about their ambitions in terms of number of subscribers.

"

Three and a half million, at 25 euros per month.

A totally utopian goal, except for Jaume Roures and the leaders of French football.

Vincent Labrune asks the Catalan business manager and Julien Bergeaud, his managing director, to confirm this firsthand during the famous meeting in December 2019, but the answer does not make anyone blink.

Two months after the launch of the channel, Téléfoot would have less than 300,000 subscribers.

“We came to a kind of collective enthusiasm”, tackle Pierre Maes.

“The safeguards jump, alerts are neglected, we no longer know - or we no longer want to - see them and we end up making decisions that go against economic realities and that can lead to an industrial disaster, continues Arnaud Simon.

It is a collective rather than an individual responsibility.

"

The blindness is not only on the financial structure of @GrupoMEDIAPRO but on the proposed economic project of profitability of a Channel, unplayable.

It's a lot.

pic.twitter.com/Gxxa0snsU7

- arnaud simon (@arnaudsimon) October 13, 2020

That of Didier Quillot, first of all, perhaps obsessed by his latent war with Maxime Saada and his desire to poke fun at Canal + by going to seek a competitor abroad, since BeIN wanted to reduce the sails.

And if it was China, even better.

It should not be read otherwise, at the time, the programming of a PSG match on Sunday at 1 p.m., exactly in the Beijing time zone.

That of Clifford Chance, the historic law firm of the LFP, responsible for imagining "a sophisticated tendering system to create inflationary tension", with blind auctions and notebooks consigned to the locker room.

The LFP went to find Mediapro and offered it Ligue 1 on a plate.

Julien Taieb says it in other words before the National Assembly.

“Canal + told us that the rights were worth 750, 800 million euros and we won't give you more.

We understood at a certain stage that if we wanted to grow we had to, perhaps, change partners.

"

The responsibility, finally, of the leaders of professional football, so lured by the profit that they forgot the most elementary precautions.

“There was a lack of discernment, confirms Jean-Paul Louvel, now in withdrawal.

The bride was too beautiful and everyone preferred to believe in Santa Claus.

No one is particularly keen on assuming failure, that goes without saying.

Quillot missing

Didier Quillot, landed by Labrune in September with a check for 1.5 million euros, is forgotten in his native southwest or elsewhere, as long as it allows him to flee journalists.

Clifford Chance let us know "that he did not wish to make any statement on this matter", and on the side of the club presidents, we are spreading the word to put all the laptops on silent.

Those most involved in the choice of Mediapro oppose us "a confidentiality agreement" which is good.

Others ?

Barely more courageous.

“I was asked not to speak, it is a collegial decision, blows a regular of the boards of directors of the LFP.

It's too dangerous to talk about Mediapro, everything we could say could cost us dearly in the coming weeks, even if we have a bitter feeling.

The situation is catastrophic, the financial survival of our clubs depends on it ”.

Rumors even evoke bankruptcy filings by January, if the clubs already weakened by the Covid-19 crisis do not see the two deadlines set before the end of 2020. Vincent Labrune is therefore struggling with the banks to obtain a loan of 120 million euros, a little less than the amount that Mediapro should have contributed before October 5.

This in itself constitutes an admission of considerable failure, deplores Pierre Maes.

“This means that the League has already given up on its hopes of one day being paid by Mediapro or by Orient Hontai Capital, otherwise it would never have requested a loan.

They didn't even say “we make a loan just in case”, no they said “we make a loan”.

"

Denouncing the contract, the least bad solution?

Some appeal to the state, but the latter sticks to its role of observer.

"It is a contract between two private organizations, reiterated Roxana Maracineanu at the microphone of France Info Friday.

It is not my vocation to intervene in the negotiation, to act as the arbiter in this type of contract.

"The Spanish company, which on September 29 initiated a mediation procedure with the president of the commercial court of Nanterre to" freeze its debt of 172 million euros ", can it still be the broadcaster of Ligue 1 in the coming weeks?

And does she really want it?

At the headquarters of the Téléfoot channel, we asked the journalists, who received their upcoming schedule, to act as if nothing had happened.

To that of the LFP, we would think about denouncing the Mediapro contract for default of payment.

Perhaps the only solution, but only the least bad.

No broadcaster will make a gift to the League and to the price executives in the act of stupidity and complacency.

“If Mediapro is, as I fear, in great difficulty and cannot honor its contract, it is necessary very quickly to turn to other operators, approves Jean-Pierre Louvel.

Then, you have to cross your fingers so that they know how to sort things out and that they do not go down the L1.

It is also their product that would fall out of favor.

“We hope for Vincent Labrune that he has some notions of belly dancing, all the same.

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