‘It will be less beneficial for the clubs’ – LFP’s plan B for Ligue 1 TV rights questioned by club presidents | OneFootball

There are only fifty days remaining before the new Ligue 1 season begins, and yet, there is still no agreement in place for a domestic broadcaster to cover the 2024/25 campaign. The LFP have spent the past year wrangling for a deal that would put the French top flight in line with the other top four European leagues, but with little under two months remaining they likely will have to enter a brave new world marked by financial uncertainty.

The league’s efforts to sell their domestic rights package for the 2024-2029 cycle has been fraught with uncertainty and setbacks. The initial bidding process in October was met with no offers being made by the broadcasters, meaning the LFP would have to negotiate directly with interested parties, where until recently they had stuck with a hardball approach that demanded €1bn (an asking price which was recently cut in half).

The president of the LFP, Vincent Labrune speaking at the Senate’s hearing on the intervention of investment funds into French football, was questioned about the league’s inability to find a broadcaster. The former Olympique de Marseille president replied, “We’ve worked to find alternative solutions. We haven’t succeeded so far. I take some of the blame, of course. We’ve done our best, and there is a [new] way.”

Labrune continued, “It will undoubtedly be less beneficial for the clubs. But there is a path which is quite simply to turn our theoretical constraint into an opportunity, by taking our destiny into our hands with our own media.” The president is referring to the league’s plan B, which would be to establish its own broadcasting channel supplied non-exclusively by at least seven distributors.

‘I don’t know if it’s the time for French football to initiate this project now’

As L’Équipe have previously reported, this project has some momentum behind it with the league having already bought broadcasting equipment (such as a control room). However, as Labrune alluded to, there are some financial concerns as this new model would offer no minimum guarantees or fixed sums, and instead the league and clubs alike would be relying on a percentage share of each subscriber recruited by the distributors. There are clearly questions that need to be answered, and this has not escaped the club presidents.

According to RMC Sport, OGC Nice president Jean-Pierre Rivère expressed his concern at the initial meeting outlining this Plan B,  “The timing is very short anyway. On paper it’s magnificent but we are in the process of creating a new model. I don’t know if it’s the time for French football to initiate this project now.”

While, the Lens and Nantes presidents have both questioned the cash flow from a subscription model. The payment from TV rights has a set schedule (August and October), but this new system will not provide clubs with a lump sum, instead, they would be relying on an unpredictable flow of subscribers.

GFFN | Nick Hartland