Coming to Paris on October 21, Jaume Roures had sworn his hand on his heart: yes, his project for France was intact. Yes, Mediapro was there for a long time. At least four years, the time of the contract signed with the Professional Football League (LFP) for the broadcasting, through the new Téléfoot channel, of matches of the French championship, the Covid-19 epidemic, which had led his company not to pay the October deadline and to ask for a discount on the entire contract, being just a mishap to be overcome.
This great communication operation was to ” to reassure “, while the founder of the Catalan audiovisual group also formalized the conciliation procedure under which its French subsidiary was placed, unable to pay its installments due to the LFP.
Seven weeks later, the tone isn’t the same at all. Discussions are continuing laboriously between the LFP and the current holder of most of the Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 matches, taking time to come to an end.
Thursday, December 10, the football clubs, which were hoping for answers, were at their expense, while a board of directors was held and then a general assembly. The only certainty, contrary to what Jaume Roures said at the end of October, Mediapro is approaching the release, even if “All the options are on the table”, says someone close to the negotiations.
In any case, according to our information, what Vincent Labrune, the president of the Football League and the judicial conciliator, Marc Sénéchal, confirmed during the board of directors. The end of the conciliation has been set for December 18, and final negotiations have reportedly been initiated to ” unplug “ Mediapro, explains a source. On condition of agreeing on the terms.
Drop Mediapro’s claim
This is where the shoe pinches: the Spanish group would like, in exchange for the restitution of its broadcasting rights to the Football League, the abandonment of all legal recourse, both from the four telecom operators who distribute its Telefoot channel, that of the LFP.
The LFP and Mediapro negotiate an overall exit amount for the balance of any account. But the Spanish group, which has pledged to pay 820 million euros per year to broadcast the French football championship, would offer a sum “Close to zero”. This would mean for the LFP the abandonment of Mediapro’s claim: at this stage around 324 million euros, ie the addition of the two unpaid invoices of October and December.
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