“Can French professional Football be saved by those responsible for its situation? »

Un “Grenelle” of French professional Football. Barely re-elected as president of the French Football Federation (FFF), Saturday December 14, Philippe Diallo announced the organization of a “major national conference” in January 2025. If he includes amateur football in his alarm, placed under his direct responsibility, he especially insists on the crisis that professional football is going through, undermined by the drastic drop in its broadcasting rights, made invisible by its new broadcasters and overwhelmed by the conclusions of a senatorial report on its financialization.

Its probable economic and sporting downgrade is all the more regrettable as training remains at a good level, sporting projects are improving, attendances are increasing and certain teams are shining this season in European competitions.

But for an elite strangled by its own weaknesses after the Covid epidemic and the withdrawal of the broadcaster Mediapro, “the prospect of distributing funds took precedence over all other considerations”concluded the senators.

Serial strategic errors

They thus designate the creation in 2022 of the commercial company LFP Média, by the Professional Football League (LFP) and the Luxembourg investment fund CVC Capital Partners. The latter paid 1.5 billion euros in exchange for an annuity of 13% of the revenues of the French championship for 99 years.

After the mortgage, the promises: the League has targeted the billion euros annually for television rights for the 2024-2029 cycle. She only got half, and the main broadcaster DAZN, considered too expensive, only had 500,000 subscribers. CVC, whose expertise was supposed to contribute to increasing rights, is now taking revenues down 25%.

The distribution of the windfall excessively favored the richest stables, increasing “the risk of a multi-speed championship”. As a whole, clubs have invested less in their development than in transfers and salaries, living “beyond their means”. The icing on the fiasco: the operation also gave rise, on November 5, to searches as part of a preliminary investigation by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office for “embezzlement of public funds”, “active and passive corruption of public officials” and ” illegal taking of interests”.

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