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Less than two months before the resumption of Ligue 1, it still does not have a broadcaster. A situation which greatly worries clubs, whose budget depends enormously on TV rights. In an interview with L’Equipe, Jean-Michel Roussier, the president of Le Havre, did not fail to be vehement against Vincent Labrune: “In view of the latest elements, we must hope for a miracle. For months, a team, supposed to move forward with global specialists, has been at work. It’s unfortunate to wait for divine intervention to obtain €400 or €500 million as I read. We created a commercial company (CVC), which takes 13% of the League’s lifetime revenue, to get to this point? We were sold the arrival of the commercial company as a major step for the development of French football and today, we are talking about a rescue plan and club shareholders are being asked to increase their financial guarantee. If that was why, we might question having given away 13% of our income for life. Everyone is realizing that bankers are not the best placed to promote a football product that they do not know. From messiahs, they quickly become apprentice sorcerers. Let us hope that tomorrow they will not be our gravediggers.“
The president of the HAC pays Labrune!
For him, the League’s plan to create its own channel is already almost doomed to failure: “We pull out an old channel project from an old box. With each call for tenders, the creation of a League channel comes back like a sea serpent. There are objective reasons why it has never gone there before. It’s a job to distribute a channel (…) Obtaining 2 million subscribers in year 1 at 20 euros excluding tax is totally illusory. Do you think that if it were that easy, Mediapro, which broadcast L1, the Champions League and the Europa League and had an agreement with Netflix, would not have continued? Canal had an even worse experience with the choice of Amazon than that of Mediapro because in the face of the latter, Canal was not pushed aside, but beaten. It is inconceivable that football could survive without Canal. But I understand her position, it must make her laugh, plan B.”
Finally, he concluded: “The League would bear a major responsibility. There is one person who makes decisions alone, the president of the League. Without drawing an analogy with what is currently happening in France, his decisions have led to sudden changes of course, which risk leading us to a shipwreck” even if he assures not to make it a “personal matter” with Labrune.
Read also
Ligue 1: new cold spell in the negotiation of TV rights
TV rights: the worrying exit of Labrune who attacks Canal+
To sum up
A president of a Ligue 1 club was not kind to Vincent Labrune, his LFP counterpart, on the subject of TV rights. Less than two months before the resumption of Ligue 1, it still does not have a broadcaster. A situation which greatly worries clubs, whose budget depends enormously on TV rights.
