Vincent Labrune defends the Amazon choice and responds bluntly to Canal +

It’s official since last week, the Professional Football League awarded the TV rights for Ligue 1 and 2 to Amazon, Canal + and beIN Sports for the period 2021-2024. An announcement that made a lot of noise. Long questioned by The team, LFP boss Vincent Labrune explained the arrival of the e-commerce giant in the audiovisual landscape of French football.

“Our job is to prepare for the future through ambitious medium-term reforms. In this logic, Amazon is the choice of reason. We must stop saying that Amazon is invisible. From our point of view, it is quite the opposite. We are looking at 2025-2030. Amazon will put Ligue 1 back at the center of French daily life. We seem to forget that Amazon is the crossroads of the mode of consumption of the fans who have less means. Amazon is not a player that does not exist, it is not Téléfoot (the channel launched and shut down very quickly by Mediapro) which is starting from scratch. It is a tool that is received by 10 million households in France, double the number of households subscribed to Canal + ”, he blurted out.

Serene in the Canal + file

Showing himself very confident about this future collaboration with the company that he sees becoming a major player in TV rights elsewhere in Europe and in the world too, the president of the governing body of French professional football also reassured on his solvency then that the teams of Ligue 1 and 2 are still, for some, traumatized by the failure and the Mediapro fiasco. Finally, he took advantage of this long interview in the columns of the sports daily to send a clear and strong message to Canal + which, a few hours after the announcement of the Amazon choice, had announced its desire to withdraw.

“Declarations of intent, threats or political fiction, all of that is very good. But at some point there are the facts and the real world. The reality is very simple. We have a contract with beIN Sports (332 million euros per year and a sub-license to Canal +) which has not yet expressed its desire to terminate it. I would add on this subject, as the government pointed out, that a contract is made to be respected. The latest court decisions are all in our favor ”, he concluded, judging that the lot held by Canal +, which he considers impossible to question, remains “very attractive”. The message got through.