Mediapro’s French football journey has come to an end after having French clubs in crisis for the non-payment of approximately €325 million for television rights.
The Spanish-Chinese audiovisual group and the Ligue de Football Professionnel(LFP) decided to end their contractual relationship, after months of overwhelming negotiations, due to the consequences of the “non-payment.”
L’Équipe (via Canal Supporters) reported that the agreement was mediated by Marc Sénéchal, the conciliator appointed by the Nanterre Commercial Court. On the other hand, the general director of the Téléfoot channel Julien Bergeaud announced during an internal meeting that an agreement was reached between Mediapro and the LFP.
Consequently, the new soccer channel will stop, without knowing exactly when.
“In parallel, a board of directors of the LFP is held at the same time. Negotiations went on until late last night. It remains to know the final timetable for this exit from the crisis,” L’Équipe wrote.
Le Parisien also reported that Mediapro would pay €100 million for the concept of compensation to the LFP under the guarantee of not initiating a judicial process. When undoing the alliance with Mediapro, the LFP will have to find a strong and solvent broadcaster; Canal Plus is a latent option, as the channel is ready to pay Ligue 1 for €590-million, plus around € 100M of achievable bonuses.
According to RMC Sport, two media outlets will jump in to broadcast the fixtures for Ligue 1.
“Canal Plus and beIN SPORTS could recover the television rights of Ligue 1 and Ligue 2. Internal messages have been sent to their companies asking employees to be “ready” to broadcast the matches. And there are many until the end of the year break, with four scheduled championship days, or a game every three days,” RMC Sport wrote.
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