French soccer’s LFP body has re-elected Vincent Labrune as its president, to serve another four-year term.
Labrune, formerly president of heavyweights Olympique de Marseille, secured 85.67% of votes in the first ballot round at the LFP’s general assembly yesterday (September 10), enough to immediately declare him as the winner. He defeated fellow board member Cyril Linette, who was standing as the alternative candidate.
Labrune's re-election has come despite being criticized over recent months for how the LFP has handled the sale of the top-tier Ligue 1 domestic TV rights - a protracted saga was only resolved a few weeks before the start of the 2024-25 season, while the annual value has also fallen.
A last-minute deal for the 2024-29 cycle with BeIN Sports and DAZN has resulted in a valuation from those partners of €500 million ($550.8 million) per year, as opposed to the original fees the league was seeking of €1 billion annually.
Labrune was first elected LFP president in September 2020, replacing Nathalie Boy de la Tour. In that vote, he defeated rival Michel Denisot, former president of Paris Saint-Germain and Châteauroux.
The LFP has said in a statement: “After a first mandate marked by emergency solutions and lasting responses to the unprecedented crisis in the financing of audiovisual rights, an era of transformation of professional football is now opening.”
The most significant action in terms of the LFP’s off-pitch activities during Labrune’s first term came in 2022 when an investment deal with private equity firm CVC was voted through.
Through that deal, a new vehicle - in which CVC has a 13.5% stake - has been created, to handle the LFP’s TV rights. CVC paid €1.5 billion for its stake in the new entity.
This investment came with French soccer reeling from the collapse of its previous major domestic rights deal - struck in 2020, with Mediapro - which left some clubs on the edge of bankruptcy.
The Mediapro deal should have been worth over $4 billion across four seasons but ended up collapsing after a mere four months.
Labrune and the LFP were then forced to go to the French government asking for financial assistance, as the coronavirus pandemic and the Mediapro collapse took its toll financially on the league and its clubs.
Labrune, meanwhile, said regarding his campaign: “There were a lot of discussions. Each candidate was able to express themselves and present their projects. The ballot boxes spoke and we are satisfied with it.
“For four years, we have launched a very ambitious structural reform plan in the face of the crises we are going through … We have to reinvent ourselves because professional football today is not the one we have known in recent years.”
He also said, regarding various comments made by his critics: “Personally, I regret, on the part of a minority of you, the excesses and outrages towards me. I was hurt by certain remarks.”
