the president of the LFP, Vincent Labrune, talks about “very complicated” negotiations

The Professional Football League is trying to sell the rights to Ligue 1 for the period 2024-2029, but is struggling to find an agreement with the broadcasters, less than two months before the start of the season.

A worrying admission, a month and a half before the start of the new Ligue 1 season, on August 16. Heard on Wednesday June 26 by the Senate commission of inquiry into the financialization of French football, Vincent Labrune, the president of the Professional Football League, spoke of negotiations “very complicated” for the allocation of TV rights for Ligue 1 over the period 2024-2029, while the championship still does not have a broadcaster.

“We are working on the allocation of rights, it is not finished, we are in the middle of negotiations. We have a very complicated and very complex subject which gives uncertainty to the clubs”, he admitted to the senators, while excluding “the disaster hypothesis”.

After the failure of its call for tenders in the fall of 2023, the LFP is entangled in over-the-counter negotiations which are unsuccessful. According to Vincent Labrune, the refusal of Canal+ to participate in the negotiations for the moment is one of the reasons for these difficulties. “Canal+ has a strong position on the French market, which is very specific compared to our neighbors, where competition can express itself more freely. There has been a lot of resentment and a strong injury between Canal and French football,” he explained to the senators.

Ideally, the LFP wishes to create a 100% Ligue 1 channel supported by the Qatari channel beIN Sports and distributed exclusively by Canal+ for nearly 700 million euros annually. But the encrypted channel assures that this plan A was never presented to it, neither by the League nor by beIN. “We have not succeeded for the moment. I am taking my part, of course. We are doing our best. It will undoubtedly be less beneficial for the clubs. But there is a path which is quite simply to make a theoretical constraint an opportunity by taking our destiny in our hands with our own media”he continued, evoking the League’s famous plan B.

In this context, the LFP would create itself, with or without the support of beIN, a 100% Ligue 1 channel which it would distribute non-exclusively to Internet service providers, broadcasters such as Amazon, DAZN or even Canal+ and to Internet channel distributors. This channel could be marketed by monthly subscription at 25 euros, excluding taxes.

An amount that Labrune did not confirm. “The 25 euros seen in the press are working hypotheses and there are several”, he said. Beyond TV rights, Vincent Labrune spoke about his remuneration in front of the senators. He confirmed that his salary had been increased at 1.2 million euros gross annually, an amount validated by its board of directors.