For Canal +, this is a big snub. And for football clubs weakened by the pandemic and the bankruptcy of Mediapro, a relief for a few months. The Nanterre Commercial Court ruled in summary proceedings that the Vivendi subsidiary should continue to produce, distribute and remunerate the famous “Lot 3” of the French football championship, which includes the Saturday evening poster and the Sunday afternoon poster.
If he does not respect his contract, the pay television group will have to pay a fine of one million euros per day of delay. Canal + has announced that it will “To appeal this decision”, although this is not suspensive. In the meantime, the company has decided to submit to the judgment: it will produce, broadcast this weekend’s matches and pay its invoices to BeIN Sports, which has sublicensed these matches to it since February 11, 2020, indicates a source close to the group. Saturday evening, Canal + subscribers will be able to watch the Troyes-PSG match on Canal + Sports.
Bloody judicial war
Canal + hopes that this is only a postponement, and is counting on the many procedures still underway with BeIN Sports and the LFP to break with Ligue 1. Thus, in parallel with this call, it attacked the Qatari subsidiary on the merits , and hopes to have its subcontracting contract with BeIN Sports canceled. It is also counting on the procedure initiated by BeIN against the LFP. She wants to have her contract on lot 3 that it concluded in 2018, during the call for tenders which had raised football prices, declared null and void, thanks to the arrival of Mediapro on the French market.
“While Canal + will have to pay 332 million euros per season to broadcast two matches per day, Amazon will broadcast eight, including 10 best posters of the season, for 250 million euros, an amount nearly 6 times inferior per game “, still lamented Canal + in a press release dated August 5.
This argument, which the group has been repeating over and over for weeks, was qualified by the lawyer for the LFP during a hearing at the Paris court on Friday, July 30. “Lot 3 allows you to choose 28 of the 38 best matches of the season”, recalled Yves Wehrli, of the firm Clifford Chance, specifying that the matches which had the most financial value were those of PSG, Marseille or Lyon.
Canal + like BeIN Sports judge the price of “Lot 3” exorbitant since Mediapro went bankrupt in the fall of 2020. But it was Amazon’s arrival in the game on June 11 that triggered this bloody legal war. After trying to negotiate amicably for months with Canal + and BeIN Sports for the retrocession of the 8 matches left vacant by Mediapro, the League conducted a classic call for tenders, in which the French and the Qatari participated. Except that the e-commerce giant finally turned out to be the best bidder of the 8 games put back on sale for the 2021-2023 seasons. In the wake of his defeat, the president of Canal + Maxime Saada then announced that he wanted to stop broadcasting Ligue 1.
You have 47.89% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
