Plans by France’s football authority to breathe life into its collapsed TV rights deal have failed after an auction failed to reach the reserve price.
In a statement, the LFP steering committee said it had received offers from Amazon, Discovery and DAZN for the right to cover Ligue 1 and Ligue 2.
“Given that the reserve price has not been met, the consultations (bids) have been declared unsuccessful,” the LFP said in a statement issued late Monday. “The LFP leaves itself 48 hours to make the next steps to take in the marketing of its rights.”
Canal Plus and beIN Sports, which have previously screened the matched were absent from the process.
Last December, a multi-million Euro broadcast deal with Mediapro collapsed after just four months. Mediapro had created a new subscription channel, Telefoot, to screen matches.
However, after missing two payments of €172 million and €152.5 million the plug was pulled with Mediapro paying a settlement fee to the LFP of €100 million.
Canal, which was seen as the most likely bidder for the rights, has instead headed for the courts. It believes the LFP should readvertise the entire contract and not just the 80% of rights previously held by Mediapro, arguing the €332 million a year its paying beIN Sports to sublicense 2 matches a week is far too high to be affordable.
