The Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP), the French football league, has said that pay-television broadcaster Canal Plus is the only candidate for the next cycle of media rights for the top-tier Ligue 1 to have requested a postponement of the sales process.
“No other candidates interested in the broadcasting rights have requested the suspension of the call for applications,” the league said today (Monday) after reports that telecommunications company Orange and the French division of pan-European sports broadcaster Eurosport had written to the league to complain about the timing of the sales process.
On March 6, two years earlier than expected by Canal Plus, the league launched a domestic rights sales process for the next cycle of rights to Ligue 1 and Ligue 2, the top two divisions in the country, covering four seasons, from 2016-17 to 2019-20. Bidding for a total of six multi-platform packages will take place between April 2 and April 4.
According to French newspaper Les Echos, Orange, which currently has Ligue 1 mobile rights, said in its letter to the league: “We regret very strongly that you did not take care to contact us prior [to the launch of the sales process]… We regret all the more that we see that you have chosen not to renew the [digital media] rights package as it has existed for several successive calls for applications and… we have been putting a lot of effort and investment into the development of our Ligue 1 product.”
Eurosport France, which has rights to the second-tier Ligue 2, asked the league in its letter to “review the timing of the tender.” Eurosport France said that the tender for Ligue 1 could “destabilise” the tender for Ligue 2 rights, and “may be questionable in competition law.”
The league is thought to be keen to take advantage of the current competition between Canal Plus and pay-television rival beIN Sports.
Canal Plus has complained to the Autorité de la Concurrence, the country’s competition authority.