This Saturday (6 p.m.), OL and Barça face each other in the Women’s Champions League final. The poster will not be broadcast on a “traditional” free-to-air channel in France – only online. Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra noted that the situation should change in the short term.
In search of their ninth Champions League, OL Women will play their final against FC Barcelona this Saturday (6 p.m.) in Bilbao. The event will be offered for free access on the Youtube channel of the DAZN platform, which holds the rights to the competition, but not unencrypted on a “traditional” French television channel. Access to the DAZN 1 channel, available on operators’ boxes, requires payment.
But this situation, which is surprising, could however change in the future. Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra wishes to expand the list of major sporting events, which have been protected in France by unencrypted broadcasting since a decree adopted in 2004. On her X account (formerly Twitter), the minister recalled that she “fought” for this decree, currently comprising 21 events, to include other events in the future such as the final of the Women’s Champions League, and this “whether or not there is a team French.
A decree amended in the fall?
Amélie Oudéa-Castéra will meet in the fall, where she hopes to have the approval of the European Commission to change the situation. “Like you, I can’t wait,” said the Minister of Sports, who wants to put women’s and Paralympic sport in the spotlight in her new list.
For example, the men’s and women’s singles finals at Roland-Garros are protected but not the entire tournament. This is what allowed Prime Video to have evening matches on the Parisian Grand Slam. In 2022, however, the broadcaster offered viewers the quarter-final between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.
In the decree, it is stipulated that if a paying channel holds the protected right, it must then offer it at a reasonable price to free channels, while having the possibility of broadcasting the event on its side. However, it is possible that the competition will not be broadcast unencrypted if no free channel wishes to recover the rights. The case occurred in 2006 during the final of the European men’s handball championship.
