A year ago, Mediapro abandoned the broadcasting of Ligue 1 and its Téléfoot channel closed its doors six months after its creation. Jaume Roures returned to this episode in the American press.
The fiasco was terrible for French football, which was to receive 798 million euros annually for four years thanks to the Mediapro contract. Unable to honor its commitments, Jaume Roures’ company finally negotiated a smooth start with a check for 100 million euros and the guarantee not to be sued by the Professional Football League. After a blurry period and a full broadcast by Canal +, it was Amazon which won the rights to 80% of Ligue 1 matches for only 250 million euros. In an interview with New-York Times at the beginning of the week, Jaume Roures felt that the LFP had made a serious mistake by entrusting the TV rights of Ligue 1 to Amazon… rather than to Mediapro.
I spoke to Jaume Roures recently – via @NYTimes https://t.co/ko0TE5M1qM
– tariq panja (@tariqpanja) October 4, 2021
And for good reason, the CEO of Mediapro reveals in the columns of the American newspaper that before leaving definitively the French audiovisual landscape, his group had proposed to the LFP to keep the television rights of Ligue 1 for the sum of 598 million. euros instead of 798 million euros. Scared by the first turmoil of Mediapro and the uncertainties related to the bank guarantees of the Sino-Spanish company, the leaders of the French clubs and the LFP finally made the choice to refuse this renegotiation and subsequently attributed their TV rights to Amazon. for a lower sum but with an absolute payment guarantee. Despite the discord he sowed in French football in the space of just a few months, Jaume Roures also told the NYT that he “Sleeps like a baby”. This will please dozens of Téléfoot employees, who found themselves unemployed overnight because their boss did not keep his commitments.
