For Canal +, this is a big snub. And for football clubs weakened by the pandemic and the bankruptcy of Mediapro, a relief for a few months. The Nanterre Commercial Court ruled in summary proceedings that the Vivendi subsidiary should continue to produce, distribute and remunerate the famous “Lot 3” of the French football championship, which includes the Saturday evening poster and the Sunday afternoon poster.
If he does not respect his contract, the pay television group will have to pay a fine of one million euros per day of delay. Canal + has announced that it will “To appeal this decision”, although this is not suspensive. In the meantime, the company has decided to submit to the judgment: it will produce, broadcast this weekend’s matches and pay its invoices to BeIN Sports, which has sublicensed these matches to it since February 11, 2020, indicates a source close to the group. Saturday evening, Canal + subscribers will be able to watch the Troyes-PSG meeting on Canal + Sport.
Bloody judicial war
Canal + hopes that this is only a partial postponement and is counting on the many procedures still underway with BeIN Sports and the LFP to break with Ligue 1. So, in parallel with this call, he attacked the Qatari channel network on the merits to cancel his subcontract with him. The group is also counting on the procedure launched against the LFP by BeIN Sports, which wishes to have its contract on lot 3 that it had concluded in 2018 declared null and void, during the call for tenders which had raised football prices. , thanks to the arrival of Mediapro on the French market.
“While Canal + will have to pay 332 million euros per season to broadcast two games per day, Amazon will broadcast eight, including the ten most beautiful posters of the season, for 250 million euros, an amount nearly six times lower per game “, is still sorry Canal + in a press release dated August 5.
This argument, which the group has been repeating over and over for weeks, was qualified by the lawyer for the LFP during a hearing at the Paris court on Friday, July 30. “Lot 3 allows you to choose 28 of the 38 best matches of the season”, recalled Yves Wehrli, of the firm Clifford Chance, specifying that the matches which had the most financial value were those of PSG, Marseille and Lyon.
Canal + like BeIN Sports deem the price of “lot 3” exorbitant since Mediapro went bankrupt in the fall of 2020. But it was Amazon’s arrival in the game on June 11 that triggered this bloody legal war. After trying to negotiate amicably for months with Canal + and BeIN Sports the retrocession of the eight games abandoned by Mediapro, the League made a classic call for tenders, in which the French and the Qatari participated. Except that the e-commerce giant ultimately turned out to be the highest bidder for these games put back on sale for the 2021-2023 seasons. In the wake of his defeat, the president of Canal + Maxime Saada announced that he wanted to stop broadcasting Ligue 1.
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