It's always better than the big technical bugs which had plagued the launch of RMC Sport in September 2018. But the little history of television will remember that Téléfoot, the new French football channel, will start with… a deprogramming. For several weeks, this eagerly awaited start has been scheduled for Friday, August 21, at 5 p.m., just before the opening match of the 2020-2021 Ligue 1 season, between Marseille and Saint-Etienne. But four days before its kickoff, the channel faces a major unforeseen event. The Professional Football League (LFP) decided on Tuesday morning to postpone this inaugural meeting, four OM players having tested positive for Covid-19.
Behind the scenes, the management of the new channel, which will have 80% of Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 for the next four seasons, asked that a new poster be proposed instead. She has been heard: it is finally the Bordeaux-Nantes match, which will be broadcast this Friday evening. This small change was not enough to take away the smile from the teams of the Téléfoot channel, who proudly presented to the press this Tuesday morning, its premises, studios and its team of consultants and commentators.
"We tried to postpone the start of the season"
The Covid-19 is not the only concern of the management of Téléfoot, who fears that the return of Ligue 1 will go completely unnoticed while Olympique Lyonnais and Paris Saint-Germain are in the last four of the Ligue des champions. "We tried to postpone the launch of the season for a week," acknowledged Tuesday morning Jaume Roures, the big boss of the Spanish group Mediapro. But this time around, he didn't win.
“The health of the French comes before any other consideration, but the Olympique de Marseille affair will affect us a little. It's a very bad signal, "admitted the Catalan leader, who also has reservations about the matches forced to take place behind closed doors:" Football in empty stadiums is not the same football as the 'we're used to seeing… It's totally different, as the concerts, theaters, parties, etc. have been different over the past six months. », He lamented. To compensate for the lack of supporters in the stands, Téléfoot will add atmospheric stadium sounds during its Ligue 1 match broadcasts.
