This evening, Olympique de Marseille will face Villarreal in the Europa League. Before this meeting which will take place at the Orange Vélodrome, Pablo Longoria gave a long interview to the daily newspaper A.S.. The opportunity to discuss numerous subjects such as the return of Marcelino, the Phocéens season, its future or even Ligue 1. Regarding this point, the president of OM was invited to speak on the consequences of the next departure of Kylian Mbappé (25 years old) regarding TV rights and possible financial losses. And Longoria’s response was pretty clear.
“What I don’t understand is this fatalism about the loss of Mbappé and the TV rights and this popular phrase: “Thank God, PSG came to save the TV rights of French football” (…) The volume of rights television is similar to what we are going through right now. What does that mean? Fees are set by the competition itself and the story you tell around your own competition. It’s the show that fixes your television rights, not a player or the stars. La Liga continued to grow without Neymar, Messi, Cristiano. For what ? Because you’re telling a story during the week. The footballing level of Ligue 1 is high. The stadiums, for the most part, are good. The level of attractiveness and television is good, but what we need to improve is the daily story you tell about the championship. The problem in France is the way we tell this story on a daily basis because we have fallen into sensationalism. And we need to talk about football again, about sport, to tell stories around the games.”
