Editorial of the “World”. The bubble has not yet exploded but the alert is getting hotter and hotter. The desire expressed this week by the audiovisual group Mediapro to revise downwards the amount of its contract with the Professional Football League (LFP) for the rights of Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 accentuates the fragility of the clubs. Most had grown accustomed to leading the way from an ultraliberal development model as the Covid-19 epidemic torpedoed week after week.
The standoff between Mediapro and the LFP has barely begun and the discussions are set to be tight. For the moment, the Sino-Spanish consortium has simply refused to pay its second payment of 172 million euros, or 17% of the 814 million euros that the clubs must share until 2024. Saint- Etienne, Bordeaux or Marseille, who are today the most exposed to financial difficulties, have not yet lowered the curtain and PSG are still paying the salaries of Kylian Mbappé and Neymar.
But there is something rotten in the kingdom of French football. Already deprived of ticketing revenues and weakened by a sluggish transfer market, clubs are now paying for having let themselves be intoxicated by the bubbles and zeros of the huge contract signed on May 29, 2018 with Mediapro to the detriment of the historic partner since 1984 , Canal +. In France as everywhere else, TV rights have always been the sinews of war. Ligue 1 thought they could finally compete with the English, Spanish, German and Italian championships, which, in this European “big five”, has always looked like a Little Thing.
A bride the clubs barely knew
At the time, the LFP and its club presidents – of which it is never the emanation – closed their eyes to a bride they barely knew and of whom they only looked at the dowry. ” The reality is that the Mediapro model was already strained. The League and the clubs preferred not to see him ”, indicates to World a club president. However, certain warning signs existed, which others were able to detect. In Italy, for example, Médiapro was left at the door for lack of sufficient financial guarantees.
In France, the trap has closed on clubs and the football industry, which employ more than 34,000 people. This summer, the LFP tried to insure itself against the risks of a default by Mediapro, but no financial organization wanted to cover a group in debt and weakened by the health crisis.
In the event of payment default, a new call for tenders could be launched within six months. Canal + is ready to jump at the opportunity to try to recover Ligue 1 at a price necessarily revised downwards, but not too much anyway in order to degrade the Ligue 1 “product” as little as possible. The president of the LFP, Vincent Labrune says he is ready to issue a loan, but it looks like a headlong rush.
For the most part in debt, the clubs have months, even years, of austerity ahead of them, especially as the repayment of the loan guaranteed by the State (220 million euros over four years) is made from TV rights negotiated with Mediapro. For a new boost to appear legitimate, the community would have to show its willingness and ability to invent a new model, breaking with the drift of recent years.
We are not there yet, so that, between the sustainable prospect of empty stadiums, galloping debt and a flagship product – Téléfoot, the channel created by Mediapro – watched by a confidential audience, the sector is today clearly in danger.
