Club presidents launch audit within LFP after “not up to standard results”

This audit comes a few days after the LFP chose the DAZN-beIN Sports duo to co-broadcast Ligue 1 matches from next season.

The saga is not over. An audit was launched on Tuesday, July 16, within the Professional Football League (LFP) by several presidents of Ligue 1 clubs. The latter highlight “results [qui] are not at the level of the investments made” after the choice of the DAZN-beIN Sports duo, which will share the broadcasting of matches for nearly 500 million euros per season.

“An audit of all the expense items of the LFP and LFP MEDIA was entrusted to several presidents because it turns out that unfortunately the results are not at the level of the investments made”, explains the press release. A document signed by Jean-Pierre Caillot, the president of the Reims club and president of the Ligue 1 college, Jean-Pierre Rivière, president of OGC Nice and vice-president of the college and Laurent Nicollin, president of Montpellier and Foot Unis, the union of professional clubs.

With one month to go until the start of the 2024-2025 season and after endless negotiations, the Professional Football League decided on Sunday, July 14, during its board of directors meeting, to share the matches between DAZN, a new player in the French football ecosystem, and the Qatari channel beIN Sports. For the next two seasons at least, DAZN should therefore broadcast eight of the nine matches of each of the 34 days of the championship for 400 million euros, with the poster of each day going to beIN for 100 million euros. Negotiations are still ongoing on this aspect.

According to the three leaders, 16 out of 18 L1 clubs “have decided to award these audiovisual rights to DAZN and beIN Sports with clauses and arrangements”. It is “a direction that we believe to be the best in the immediate future for French professional football”, estimate these three presidents of L1 clubs. In addition to these 500 million on the national rights of Ligue 1, French football will also receive 160 million annually obtained for international rights, plus 40 million from Ligue 2 rights, i.e. a total of 700 million euros annually, far from the billion hoped for in October by the president of the League, Vincent Labrune.

Meeting in college before the Board of Directors meeting which sealed the agreement, the presidents of the Ligue 1 clubs, despite heated debates according to one participant, ruled out on Sunday the launch of a 100% L1 channel, produced directly by the LFP, even coupled with the Max catalogue of Warner Bros Discovery.