One more tile. As revealed last Saturday by The Team , Canal +, the main broadcaster of Ligue 1, refuses to pay the check for 110 million euros scheduled for April 5. Holder of part of the broadcasting rights, with BeIN sports, the group is thus justified to the Professional Football League (LFP): "It is not possible that we pay the deadlines to come, even though in Because of the suspension of the League 1 Championship, no match can be played and, consequently broadcast on our antennas ", writes Maxime Saada, the boss of the encrypted chain, in a letter quoted by the sports daily.
Annoyed to have lost the battle for the next rights stretching from 2020 to 2024 - the Spanish Mediapro becomes the major player of this period -, Saada will not give any gift to the body, which centralizes the revenues. This is a new blow for French football, already impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The championships are suspended, revenues are lacking, such as the ticket office, while expenses, mainly player salaries, continue to fall. Many clubs have resorted to partial unemployment in its simplified version by the government to respond to the economic crisis which is added to the first, health.
What if Canal + settled the proportion due according to the matches already broadcast?
At first, the LFP, helped by some influential leaders of French football, will try to change the position of Canal +. The idea is to speak with one voice while since the appearance of the coronavirus and its dramatic consequences, a masterful cacophony has taken hold of the environment, each playing their own card. Skype meetings between presidents punctuated their day this Saturday, in search of the right strategy.
The goal: that the chain regulates at least the proportion due according to the matches already broadcast, those before the interruption decided on March 13. Forty million euros are at stake. It would be a lesser evil, obviously absolutely not enough to absorb the gigantic losses that lie ahead. For the whole of Ligue 1, these currently amount to 300 to 400 million euros. We will have to find a way to fill them. Powerful shareholders - PSG and Qatar; Monaco and Dmitri Rybolovlev or Marseille and Frank McCourt - will have less trouble coping with this shortfall than clubs based on more fragile investors.
But the enormous concern goes far beyond the refusal of Canal + to fulfill its commitments or the ticketing stalled. It concerns the next transfer window. The transfer market is vital for the sector. Last season, 19 out of 20 clubs in the French Championship balanced their accounts through trading, that is to say the sale of players. This is the French economic model for L 1: losses that are erased by selling our best flagships, mainly from the French training. Who can say what the next transfer window will look like or, incidentally, when it takes place?
Some clubs do not rule out filing for bankruptcy
England likes to buy French players, but the crisis will also hit the Premier League which could be chilly when the market is finally opened. The era will not necessarily be one of madness and millions spent. Ligue 1 dreads it and the 300 to 400 million euros in losses due directly to the Covid -19, 400 million could be added in non-sales of footballers. Some club leaders say it in private: at this stage of the crisis, they do not rule out a bankruptcy when the season ends (there is a consensus to end the Championship whatever the closing date).
Faced with this slump, the clubs are organizing to find liquidity. The League lives under an associative regime, it cannot borrow and then redistribute to the Championship teams. But the LFP can turn to private financiers who advance it the amounts of the next rights 2020-2024. It would reimburse these creditors over the installments of Mediapro (which must pay 780 million euros per season). The Spanish will start paying when the 2020-2021 season starts, which is another problem. But in the meantime, this advance could relieve this Ligue 1 a little in the middle of a storm.