Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP)

BeIN Media Group has recouped just under 44 per cent of its total fee for Ligue 1 international rights from sublicensing deals in sub-Saharan Africa this month.

Pay-television broadcasters Canal Plus Afrique and Kwesé Sports have been awarded media rights to Ligue 1, the top division of French club football, in sub-Saharan Africa, TV Sports Markets understands.

The Ligue de Football Professionnel, which operates the French football league, has held talks with Facebook and Amazon over its next cycle of media rights, according to the organisation’s director general, Didier Quillot.

BeIN Media Group will launch tenders for French Ligue 1 media rights in Brazil and Latin America next week, TV Sports Markets understands.

Frédéric Thiriez, the former president of the Ligue de Football Professionnel, the French football league, has claimed that French President François Hollande’s intervention in the tender for the current cycle of domestic media rights represented a “serious breach of competition law.”

The French football league last month agreed deals for beIN Sports and Canal Plus to show its matches in public places, increasing fees by 15 per cent.

Canal Plus’s recent loss of English Premier League rights in France helped the value of Coupe de la Ligue media rights increase by 119 per cent last month.

The Perform Group has acquired betting rights to Spain’s LaLiga and France’s Ligue 1 in recent weeks, affirming its position as the leading supplier of streaming rights to bookmakers.

Football rights fees across sub-Saharan Africa continued their rapid growth this month, with big increases paid for three of Europe’s major football leagues.

Online sports portals Spox.com and Goal.com have acquired live streaming rights in Germany to Ligue 1, the top division of French football.

The Ligue de Football Professionnel, the football league in France, has warned that it will step up legal action against social media website Twitter and its Vine application.

Greek pay-television broadcaster Nova picked up rights to France’s Ligue 1 earlier this month in an attempt to retain subscribers after losing Uefa Champions League and Europa League rights to rival OTE.

The Spanish football league outlined plans to launch its own channel in 2016 at a panel discussion chaired by TV Sports Markets this month at Sportel in Monaco.

France’s top football league, Ligue 1, has become the third major rights-holder in just over a month to renew a long-term media-rights deal many years in advance without an open tender.

Leading figures from the French football and media industries voiced strong and colourful opinions on last week's Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 domestic media rights deals to local media

The LFP believes the outcome of last week’s auction for the media rights to Ligue 1 was a moderate success, and that it could not have done much better given market conditions