In a self-promotional spot to celebrate its 40 years of existence this Monday, Canal+ addresses a major challenge to the Professional Football League (LFP) in the management of TV rights for Ligue 1.
Canal+ is celebrating its 40th anniversary this Monday. And to celebrate this, the encrypted channel has concocted a two-minute clip in a sort of mini-fiction played by several actors to relate the skepticisms from the beginnings to its current and past successes. Canal+ even took the opportunity to settle its scores by making a serious attack on the Professional Football League (LFP) for its management of Ligue 1 TV rights.
“We did everything for French football, is that how we get thanked?”
One passage features a manager of the channel getting angry on the phone with what we guess is a senior representative of the LFP. “We did everything for French football, is that how we get thanked?” he says. “How much?” asks a man next to him, who could be seen as the group’s shareholder. “A billion”, replies the first before receiving a terse response from his interlocutor: “It’s not just Ligue 1”.
The clip then continues with images of Formula 1 and Top 14, two of the flagship sporting rights held by the group. Historical broadcaster of the French championship since its creation (with Nantes-Monaco, as the first match on the channel, on November 9, 1984, five days after its debut), Canal+ did not position itself on the last call for tenders for the LFP for the broadcast of the L1 between 2024 and 2029. Vincent Labrune, president of the LFP, had proclaimed his intention to raise a billion euros before suffering a bitter failure pushing him to accept only half of this amount by DAZN and beIN Sports (around 500 million euros per season).
The encrypted channel had a very bad experience of the LFP's decision not to lower the amount of its rights for the broadcast of two matches in 2021-2024 after having reallocated the eight matches from Mediapro to Amazon Prime Video for a good amount. lesser. The group had taken several legal actions against the LFP but were dismissed. In retaliation, it did not align with the call for tenders for 2024-2029, focusing its efforts on other sporting rights such as the European football cups, F1 or rugby.
