The LFP attacked from all sides.
After beIN Sports and Canal +, it is now Free that is pushing the Professional Football League to justice in the endless series of Ligue 1 TV rights for the period 2020-2024.
According to information from L'Equipe, the operator summoned the LFP to the Paris court on March 15 to request a revision of the price of his contract.
Like its two competitors, Free feels aggrieved since the signing of new broadcasting agreements between the League and Amazon.
The American firm recovered in June 2021 the TV rights previously awarded to Mediapro for a price well below the initial amount.
The streaming platform now broadcasts 80% of Ligue 1 matches, including the 10 most beautiful posters of the season, for 250 million euros,
Free had negotiated over the period 2020-2024 the “quasi-direct” rights of 100% of Ligue 1 for 42 million euros per season.
Concretely, Free Ligue 1 subscribers can access extracts from the best moments of the match in the form of short videos, published a few seconds after the actions.
In total, the accumulation of content cannot exceed 30 minutes of the meeting.
The operator would therefore like to see its contract renegotiated taking into account the reduction in the price of past rights reallocated to Amazon, but also the economic impact of the health crisis.
Read alsoTV rights: Amazon's choice for Ligue 1 is "the best", according to Vincent Labrune
For similar reasons, beIN Sports and Canal + want them to terminate the entire contract.
So far, Canal + must pay 322 million euros per year to the Qatari media group in exchange for the rights to broadcast two matches per day (Saturday at 9 p.m. and Sunday at 5 p.m.).
But as the Versailles Court of Appeal asked the two groups at the end of March, Free will be forced to continue to honor its contract until the judgment, and therefore to broadcast and pay the contractual sums to the LFP.
This new judicial twist should also postpone the final judgment by several months, initially expected in May, in December, at best.