PARIS (Reuters) – The French Competition Authority announced on Wednesday the rejection of appeals filed by Canal+, a subsidiary of Vivendi, and beIN Sports against the reattribution to Amazon, by the Professional Football League (LFP) in 2021, of rights broadcasters of Ligue 1 de Football previously owned by Mediapro.
In a press release, the regulator considered “that the elements provided by Canal+ and beIN are insufficient to conclude that the LFP would have abused its dominant position, by treating them differently from Amazon in the Mediapro prize reattribution procedure, or by not favoring their offer over that of Amazon”.
Mediapro had struck a blow in 2018 by winning most of the lots of an LFP call for tenders for the period 2020-2024, promising the payment of more than 1.1 billion euros. But at the end of 2020, the LFP and Mediapro agreed to terminate the contract which bound them early, given the financial difficulties of the Spanish group.
The League then organized a new call for tenders for the Mediapro lots in January 2021, which proved unsuccessful. The LFP finally awarded the rights concerned to Amazon in June 2021 for an amount of 250 million euros per season following negotiations with the various players, including Canal+ and beIN.
The plaintiffs, explained the Autorité, argued that by granting Amazon the rights previously held by Mediapro, the LFP had committed an abuse of discrimination, insofar as, at the same time, Canal+ and Bein Sports remained obliged to broadcast the matches of the lot 3, acquired in 2018 for 332 million euros per season.
But the Competition Authority recalled its decision of June 2021 according to which the LFP did not have to bring into play the rights of lot 3, this last lot having been “assigned regularly for a period of four years by a contract duly formed and executed”.
“For these reasons, the Autorité rejects the referrals to the merits for lack of sufficiently convincing evidence and, consequently, the requests for interim measures which are ancillary to them”, she concluded.
(Written by Jean-Stéphane Brosse, edited by Blandine Hénault)