The war does not weaken. Engaged in a legal conflict with Canal + and BeIN Sports for five years over TV rights for Ligue 1, the LFP (Professional Football League) won a new trial.
This Wednesday, the Paris Court of Appeal rendered judgments favorable to the body governing French football in the context of the dispute between it and the two channels, which denounce an unfairness in the contract signed by the League with Amazon Prime Video in June 2021.
Still not seeming ready to bury the hatchet, Canal +, which, like beIN, is demanding around 660 million euros from the LFP, reacted via a press release released this Thursday morning.
“The Canal + group has taken note of the decisions of the Paris Court of Appeal in the disputes between it and the LFP and LFP Média and of the latter’s press release, which seem to consider that an operator who considers himself discriminated against acts abusively when he seeks to defend his rights in court,” we can read. “This is not the position of the Paris Court of Appeal, which dismissed the LFP and LFP Média of their request for abusive procedure,” recalls the encrypted channel before counterattacking.
Canal + considers having suffered “considerable financial damage”
“Canal + has always been content to defend its interests as well as those of its subscribers. A legitimate approach given the considerable financial damage he suffered. The Canal + group will examine the avenues of appeal available to it to continue to assert its rights. » Suffice to say that the judicial soap opera is not close to its end.
As a reminder, the management of television rights for Ligue 1 post-Mediapro fiasco considerably damaged relations between the League and its historic audiovisual partner, five years ago now. The rights left by the Spanish group had been bought for 250 million euros per season by the Amazon platform, while the body had maintained the BeIN contract (whose rights were sublicensed to Canal +) at 332 million euros for 20% of the matches.
The start of a series of legal challenges and the deterioration of relations between the three parties. At the start of the season, a solution seemed possible at the time of the launch of Ligue 1 +, which Canal + was close to distributing to its subscribers. But the agreement collapsed when the encrypted channel refused to abandon ongoing legal proceedings.
Relieved by the decision of the Paris Court of Appeal, the LFP also reacted on Wednesday evening, hoping for the end of a “procedural and reputational relentlessness” carried out by Canal + and BeIN Sports, accused of “stubbornness”.
