“I don’t believe in the disaster hypothesis. » Before the Senate information mission on investment funds in French professional football, Vincent Labrune painfully tried, Wednesday June 26, for almost three hours, to convince his audience that French clubs will not emerge bloodless from the soap opera extending the sale of Ligue 1 television rights for the 2024-2029 cycle.
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Blue jacket and thin glasses, the president of the Professional Football League (LFP) was interviewed by the fact-finding mission at a pivotal moment. Due to the lack of a distribution agreement between the BeIN Sports and Canal + channels, the LFP has still not found a broadcaster for the next season of the French championship. While the television rights contract (2021-2024) expires on June 30, the League is urgently working on an adventurous “plan B”, which would consist of creating and marketing its close channel with all League matches. 1.
“We did not succeed [à trouver un diffuseur], I take my share of it. There is a path which will undoubtedly be less beneficial for the clubs if we cannot find an agreement with Canal +conceded Mr. Labrune. But there is a path which is quite simply to make a theoretical constraint an opportunity (…)trying to create our own media.”
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Under the constant fire of questions from the mission’s rapporteur, Michel Savin (Isère, Les Républicains), Mr. Labrune admitted not being the “master of clocks” in this file, highlighting the “feeling of betrayal” experienced by Canal +, owned by Vincent Bolloré, since the financial failure of Mediapro and the purchase of Ligue 1 television rights, in 2021, by Amazon.
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A “win-win model”
With his back to the wall, Mr. Labrune was mainly questioned about the creation, in 2022, by the LFP, of a commercial company, LFP Media, under an agreement with the Luxembourg investment fund CVC Capital Partners. The said agreement provides for the sale of 13% of the capital of LFP Media for 1.5 billion euros and the payment, in exchange, to CVC of 13% of the profit of the commercial company.
Mr. Labrune recognized that the question of ” duration “ of this “exceptional agreement with CVC” never came up during negotiations with the fund. Before a skeptical audience, he praised a “win-win model”, Who “protects clubs enormously in the event of a reduction in television rights”.
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Far from sharing his enthusiasm, the senators highlighted the ” gap ” between the ” business plan “, the optimistic commercial forecasts of the LFP in 2022 and “the financial situation and the concern of many clubs”, in great pain “to draw up their budget without knowing the amount of fees” domestics.
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