The financial situation of Ligue 1 Football is “serious” and we will “have to act quickly”, estimates the Minister of Sports Marie Barsacq in an interview broadcast Tuesday by West France.
“What concerns me today is Ligue 1: the situation is serious. With a deficit of 1.2 billion euros, we will have to act quickly,” declared the new minister, who worked for a long time at the French Football Federation (FFF) before joining the organizing committee for the Olympic Games in Paris.
“We need football in good shape”
“The numbers cause us to be concerned. We need football in good shape,” she said. “I obviously understand the issues and the consequences of the call for tenders that took place on TV rights,” she said, while the negotiations did not bring in as much money as expected. “I don’t want to shoot the ambulance. My challenge is to lead to dialogue and to seek solutions,” she added.
After promising to obtain one billion euros per season, the LFP had to swallow its ambitions and sold L1 matches for an annual total of around 500 million euros divided between the DAZN platform and beIN Sports.
-“It’s not all about the budget”
Furthermore, as the president of the Professional Football League, Vincent Labrune, suggested in December, subscribers are not there and piracy is raging. Some 55% of viewers of the last OM-PSG, a classic of the French championship, at the end of October went through illegal sources, according to an investigation by Arcom, the audiovisual regulator. Marie Barsacq indicated to West France that she would soon meet “the governing bodies” on the subject.
“The arrival of new investors, like Redbull or the Arnault family at Paris FC, are positive elements. But it’s not all about budget,” she said. Asked also about the attribution of the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia, she said she was “skeptical” about the “ecological issues”.
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