The broadcast saga between French soccer’s LFP and DAZN has taken another twist after the league organizing body voted to end its five-year domestic rights deal with the global streaming service after less than a year.
At a board meeting yesterday (April 15), the LFP board of directors, made up of presidents of top-flight Ligue 1 clubs, voted to end its relationship with the over-the-top platform at the end of this season.
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A financial proposal for the termination of the contract was sent by the LFP to DAZN, which comes after a long period of tension and negotiations between the two parties, with the streaming service understood to have immediately rejected the terms of the cancellation, according to reports in France.
Earlier this year, DAZN failed to pay half of a rights fee instalment of around €70 million that was originally due in January.
The streamer withheld €35 million worth of funds, citing challenging operational conditions, partly due to piracy issues and insufficient cooperation from certain clubs in promoting the Ligue 1 product and failing to provide editorial content.
At that time, it was reported that DAZN, which picked up Ligue 1 rights in a highly contentious bidding saga in mid-2024, was convinced that the LFP did not give the broadcaster’s executives all the required elements regarding the marketing distribution of the league prior to signing a €375 million-per-year rights deal.
This forced the LFP to take legal action against the broadcaster to receive the funds.
After mediation by the Paris Economic Activities Tribunal, DAZN finally paid the remainder of the funds it owed of its January media rights fee in late February.
The pair, however, agreed to extend the mediation process in the Paris Commercial Court, with the deadline to end mediation, initially scheduled for March 31, pushed back to April 10.
For several weeks, this mediator, appointed by the Paris Commercial Court, had been trying to find common ground between the two parties.
Discussions between the organizations intensified, with the extension put in place for more constructive talks between them.
With an agreement over the value of DAZN’s contract covering live Ligue 1 action, which started this season, not reached, legal recourse will now have to be sought.
It was the mediator appointed in this dispute who proposed to the two partners to terminate their contract.
In a statement issued to GlobalData Sport (Sportcal), DAZN said: “After four months of discussions – including six weeks of mediation – initiated in good faith by DAZN and involving several proposals, the mediation unfortunately did not succeed in sufficiently bridging the gap between the parties.
“It has therefore not been possible – at this stage – to reach an agreement for an amicable resolution of the situation.”
Ligue 1 action is shown domestically by both DAZN (eight matches per game week) and BeIN Sports (one game), through a deal that began at the start of this season.
The agreements are worth around €400 million annually, with DAZN paying most of the figure. Those deals are due to run until 2029.
The Ligue 1 media rights saga that engulfed the summer of 2024 was disastrous, and as many as eight second-tier Ligue 2 clubs were said to be at risk of bankruptcy had a deal not been reached.
The LFP tanked its domestic broadcast rights outlook by overestimating the value of its package, resulting in this season marking the first time since 1984 that French broadcasting heavyweight Canal Plus is not airing live Ligue 1 matches.
In terms of DAZN's concerns over piracy, an LFP-backed report late last year seemed to back up its concerns, as it was found that 37% of those who had watched Ligue 1 action during the first few months of 2024-25 had done so illegally.
DAZN has previously stated it needs 1.5 million subscribers to break even on the deal, however, numbers are understood to be well below that figure.
During the time when DAZN was withholding its funding for the LFP, the body was forced to dip into its cash reserves to pay Ligue 1 clubs to make up the shortfall.
DAZN still has two more payments to make this season, due on April 30 and June 30, for a total of €140 million.
The streaming platform is also suing the LFP for €573 million for “observed breaches” and “deception regarding merchandise.”
The ongoing dispute is heightening the concerns of the most financially vulnerable teams and maintaining divisions between club presidents over the league's strategy and that of its president, Vincent Labrune, regarding TV rights.
According to RMC Sport, the LFP president is reportedly leaning towards creating an in-house channel to broadcast games, with Labrune declaring: “We have to move forward on our own.”
