For popular football – Liberation
The small chronicle of the TV rights of French football TV never ends. After the case Mediappwhich had already seen the French Football League (LFP) breaks its contract with its broadcaster in the middle of Covid pandemic, it is now his successor Daznwho throws in the towel. An agreement has certainly been found after months of dispute. The latest deadlines of the season will be paid, while the procedure initiated by the new broadcaster for « deception on the goods » in the face of the low number of subscribers (500,000 after having broken the prices, against 1.5 million expected) is abandoned. In exchange, the current contract normally up to 2029 will end.
The regulations of 140 million euros due offer a breath of fresh air, but the respite will be short -lived. There LFP Now plans to create her own channel to broadcast Ligue 1 matches, but nothing says that she will be more attractive, nor that the recipes thus generated will be more equitably distributed while they benefit today especially in the big stables. Professional clubs are experiencing a chronic operating deficit of 1.2 billion euros per year, which are struggling to compensate for the sale of their talents at the largest European championships. The financial windfall resulting from TV rights has been dilapidated in unbearable wages, transfers and deleveraging of clubs, rather than devoting it to investment in infrastructure and development.
And football continues to have a diversion. Thus the latest TheDole committees that have been created. Whether it is the « working groups » launched by Philippe Diallo, president of the French Football Federation (FFF), and the Minister of Sports, Marie Barsacq, to »rethink » the economic model of football. Or the sudden activity of the National Council for Ethics and Ethics, attached to the FFF which requires a declaration of interest to the main leaders of French football bodies, while the Savin report of the Senate raised the issue of conflicts of interest in the allocation of TV rights.
Financialization threatens clubs today, subjecting them to short -term interests and distant arbitrations. Almost half of Ligue 1 clubs are now held by investment funds. The Girondins de Bordeaux, for example, paid the price, downgraded to National 2 (fourth division) with the loss of their professional status, the dismissal of a hundred employees and a debt of 100 million euros. And the madness of football business wins to amateur football, where disasters are increasing, as illustrated by the case of FC Libourne in Gironde, liquidated after two years after his takeover by an investor who over -indebted the club.
It is urgent to regulate French football thanks to the cap of wages, the management of shareholding or the democratization of clubs and bodies. And it is the supporters who show the way. With popular shareholding first, such as EA Guingamp which opened its capital to Kalons or the Green Socios project to enter the capital of AS Saint-Etienne. With the cooperatives then, who associate supporters, local authorities and local investors to take over all or part of the clubs such as SC Bastia or FC Sochaux-Montbéliard.
It is only by a revolt of the base that all enthusiasts will again be able to do this quote attributed to Albert Camus: « The little moral I know, I learned it on the football fields. »
