The French Professional Football League is facing a significant crisis as the organization has received no bids for broadcasting rights.
On Tuesday, league officials confirmed that French football’s presence on TV screens is under threat as no one is willing to pay the £693million annual fee to stream Ligue 1 and 2 games.
This news comes as a surprise, as Canal Plus, the longest-standing broadcast partner of the Professional Football League, declined to make an offer for the 2024-29 cycle on Monday.
As a result, Ligue 1 was forced to launch the bid on Tuesday without the French TV giants, hoping that they could sell the Ligue 1 broadcast rights.
The bid consisted of five bundles, including the two main bundles for the rights to broadcast games live.
The first bundle, worth £459million, included the two most significant matches of the game week, along with the fourth-choice fixture.
The second bundle, worth £234 million, was to stream the remainder of the matches not shown by other broadcasters.
Despite the availability of these bundles, none were purchased at the current price, including by Canal Plus, forcing LFP to negotiate directly with them and other interested TV services, according to L’Equipe.
LFP officials stated that “After having received multiple qualitative offers and guaranteed financial packages on all of the bundles (1-5), LFP Media reveals that none of the bundles have been attributed today (Tuesday). As a result, LFP Media is continuing its commercialization process of the rights to Ligue 1 and postpones the call for candidates for Ligue 2.”
The call for tenders for Ligue 2 rights was scheduled for Thursday 19th and Friday 20th October.
Canal Plus has been showing top-flight football in France since the pay TV service launched in 1984.
However, the broadcaster has been in conflict with the LFP since 2020 due to a potential record deal with Spanish company Mediapro.
The bid process for the LFP also came at a stressful time in French football.
The recent departures of football icons Lionel Messi and Neymar from Paris Saint-Germain have hindered LFP’s chance of boosting the price for TV rights.
With uncertainty over Kylian Mbappe’s future in the French capital, Ligue 1 will most likely need to settle for a modest sum of money to seal a deal.
In comparison to the mega-rich Premier League, which sold its three-year cycle broadcast rights for more than £ 10 billion for the 2022-25 cycle, the relationship between Canal Plus and French football is similar to that between Sky Sports and the Premier League.
The current crisis in French football and the inability to secure broadcasting rights will have significant implications for the league’s future, and it remains to be seen what steps will be taken to resolve the situation.
