The future of French football hangs from a thread because of television rights in its league. The crisis is so serious that the supervisory authorities have recommended to clubs to schedule a budget for the next season without the crucial audiovisual revenues.
“Less the PSG (which has the financing of Qatar), the smaller the club, the more dependent it is on television rights. Surely the clubs will not go bankrupt, but the loss of competitiveness will be enormous,” warned Pierre Maestro, author of the book ‘The Ruin of French football: from the fall of Mediapro to the third European division. Who is to blame? ‘
At the end of April, the National Directorate of Management Control -DNGC, the body of the French League (LFP) in charge of supervising club accounts- raised many of their chairs by asking entities to prepare their accounts of next year without providing a euro in television rights.
The dispute between the LFP and its still diffuser Dazn – who are mutually accused of not fulfilling the contract that unites them – has put Gallic football in a dead end.
“I don’t think they have made that recommendation (zero euros of television revenue) to scare. The risk is real,” third teacher, specialist in television rights of the French championship.
Income losses – and therefore of means for clubs to retain or file level players – vary depending on the size and shareholders of each entity.
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Excluding the transfer of soccer players, the PSG and the Olympique of Marseille would be the ones who would lose, around 20 and 35% of their income, respectively. However, for other teams, the situation would be dramatic.
The Monaco, a regular of the European competitions that the Champions will play next year, has about 50% of its total income in television rights.
Other French football classics, such as Rennes and Nantes, would lose around 40% if the French league was left without diffuser for the 2025-2026 course.
Although the lack of audiovisual competence in France and certain political interference has influenced, the closest cause is the Spanish Mediapro group, which, claiming the fall of the business by the Covid pandemic, left of French football shortly after having committed to pay 1,153 million euros per season between 2020-2024.
Since that divorce was consumed in 2021, the LFP was seen against the sword and the wall and had to find a retransmitter channel urgently for the 2021-2024 period.
The entity found Amazon, which disbursed 250 million per year for 80% of the matches, and resorted to the Catarí Bein Sports (332 million) channel for the two most interesting games of the day.
The loss of income with respect to the midf contract was already 45%. Given this remarkable income fall that directly affected the finances of the clubs, the president of the LFP, Vincent Labrune, went to the Investment Fund of Luxembourg CVC to achieve liquidity.
In exchange for 1.5 billion euros that would largely be to refloat the entity’s box, he yielded, for life, 13% of LFP Media, the LFP commercial company.
This operation was the subject of a parliamentary investigation in 2024 that led French justice to order records at the headquarters of the League for suspicions of diversion of funds.
In the tender for this season, the rights skated even more. Before the lack of interested parties-the historical diffuser Canal + retired from the bids after the departure of Mediapro-, the LFP attributed them until 2029 for a total of 660 million to the British Dazn and Bein Sports, which meant 11% less than the period 2021-2024.
But that new agreement caught by pins has visions to last little. Dazn, who contributes 400 million annually, came to refuse to disburse one of the agreed sections by estimating that the LFP had not fulfilled its part to fight piracy. The League had to go to court to unlock payment.
At this point in the season, it is not clear whether or not Dazn will continue as a diffuser. Before this panorama, Master sees three paths, none of them flattering.
“It follows with Dazn renegotiating downward; its own channel is created, something that is financially risky; or another diffuser is sought, with the problem that there are no interested parties,” he explains.
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Meanwhile, the pit of the Gallic championship with the rest of the greats in Europe enlarges. The Premier League raises 4,000 million euros per season for television rights; the Spanish League, 2,000; the Bundesliga, 1,200; and series A, 1,100.
With EFE information
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