Pablo Longoria and Olympique de Marseille have often remained silent regarding hot issues in L1. Recently, the boss of the Marseille club still came out of silence to talk about the famous TV rights, renegotiated downwards (€500 million against the billion euros promised) by Vincent Labrune and his teams. “The sale of audiovisual rights was a very hard blow, not only for Olympique de Marseille, but for the entire Ligue 1. When we analyze what happened, we see that in France a large part of the “Money went to European competitions.”
Today, this TV rights affair is far from over since beIN SPORTS is at the heart of all attention. The Qatari channel allows itself to broadcast one L1 match per weekend even though it has still not paid a single penny (the first installment of 24% remains unpaid) and has not even signed a single contract! A lunar situation which pushed Olympique Lyonnais to attack the LFP. And OM in all this? If the Olympians are following this carefully, they are also giving the LFP a hard time against a backdrop of rivalry with PSG.
OM will not let this happen
Indeed, it should be remembered that the TV rights were acquired by DAZN in exchange for €400 million + €100 million paid by beIN SPORTS. 100 M€ which breaks down as follows: 80 M€ paid by the media + a sponsorship deal of 20 M€ (including 16.4 M€ to be shared between L1 and L2 clubs) requiring French teams to promote of Qatar Tourism on their jerseys. This is where things get stuck with OM if we are to believe today’s edition of Provence.
Clearly, there is no question for OM of advertising Qatar and its Parisian rival on its jerseys in exchange for a small sum. Indeed, according to the established proportions, each L1 club would receive around €730,000 (around €170,000 for those in L2). An amount far too low for OM. Provence also adds that this sum would be much lower than the deal made with a competitor like “Sublime Côte d’Ivoire”. There is therefore no question of giving gifts to the League and especially to beIN SPORTS. While waiting to see what the LFP will offer to the Phocaeans, the newspaper concludes by saying that OM would be ready to negotiate if the Qatari sponsor was only displayed on removable advertising panels before the match.
