The 20 member clubs of Ligue 1, the top division of French football, have agreed a new deal for the division of broadcast revenues over the coming seasons.
The agreement ends a period of dispute, with a group of France’s smaller teams having been unhappy with how the current annual figure of €748.5m ($826.3m) was to be divided up over the next four seasons.
The clubs, which include Rennes and Montpellier, had complained that the ratio between what Ligue 1’s top teams and those near the foot of the table received had grown too wide.
Under the new agreement, the ratio between the share for the Ligue 1 champions and the bottom club will drop from 1:4.1 for the current 2016-17 season to 1:3.6 in 2017-18 and 1:3.2 for the following two campaigns of the current rights deal.
Should a new rights contract bring in more than €1bn per season, the ratio between first and 20th will drop to 1:2.5, and to 1:2.2 if revenues exceed €1.5bn annually.