With just weeks to go before the start of the new football season, French football authorities are struggling to sell their domestic broadcasting rights.
The LFP was looking for €1 billion to cover the five-year cycle from 2024 through to the end of the 2028-29 season. Canal Plus, beIn Sport and DAZN were all in the frame, but with none of the major players submitting a bid, the LFP has been forced to conduct one on one negotiations.
The current deal with Amazon – itself mired in controversy – expired at the end of last season.
The League has even considered launching its own channel with all Ligue 1 matches available for a monthly €25 fee.
The LFP initially wanted €1 billion but sports daily L’Équipe has reported the rights are now worth only half that.
In 2018, LFP sold the rights to the Chinese-backed Mediapro for a record £800 million, freezing out long-standing partner Canal+. But the choice of the unproven company proved to be disastrous when in the pandemic hit season of 2020 Mediapro ceased payments.
LFP then made an agreement with Amazon, further enraging Canal when it emerged the cut price deal with Amazon worked out as being less that the Vivendi unit had paid for the smaller package under license from beIN.
This latest crisis is already impacting the game itself with RMC Sport, reporting Ligue 2 champions Auxerre have put a hold on talks to buy player Tim Jabol-Folcarelli until there is some certainty on TV revenues.
