Reduction in TV rights for French football: what consequences?

The audiovisual rights of French football are much lower than those, for example, of Premier league Englishwhose television broadcasting rights amount to 3.9 billion euros annually.

In addition, the average number of subscribers in France is around 500,000 while profitability would be achieved with 1.5 million subscribers.

Faced with this observation, the report establishes avenues to ensure the sustainability of French football. This implies a better supervision of LFP decisionsby imposing the obligation to better report on the situation to the Federation and the State within the framework of an annual report.

The report also proposes establishing good management practicesfor example by creating an obligation to declare conflicts of interest within the LFP or by establishing a ceiling on the remuneration of the president of the League. An envelope of €37.5 million was thus devoted, not to the development of the clubs, but to the remuneration of the councils and managers of the LFP. According to the Senate report, the president benefited from a bonus of 3 million euros and “tripled his salary” for two years, to reach 1.2 million euros.