Bundesliga TV rights
DAZN/DFL dispute escalates: warnings and “slander”
The internet sports broadcaster DAZN and the German Football League continue to argue over late TV payments and the rights auction. photo
© Rolf Vennenbernd/dpa
The DFL and the broadcaster DAZN continue to argue over late TV payments and the rights auction. Both make serious allegations in letters. And the clubs have a financial problem.
The DFL-DAZN dispute is escalating, the tone is becoming increasingly harsh – and the Bundesliga soccer teams will be missing around 80 million euros in the coming months. The tough dispute over late TV money payments and the interruption of the rights auction continued over the weekend. Two days before the announced start of the legal process, the internet broadcaster made new allegations against them in a letter to the 36 clubs German Football League (DFL).
“The credibility of DAZN as a trustworthy business partner” has been “massively discredited by the behavior and statements of the DFL management in the past two weeks,” says the letter from DAZN boss Shay Segev to the 36 professional clubs, the German one Press agency available. It is the latest of several letters to the clubs that both sides have sent in the past few days.
In DFL circular 206, “the impression arises that DAZN deliberately caused massive payment defaults to the 36 clubs in the Bundesliga and 2nd Bundesliga,” it says in the DAZN letter to the clubs. “We state: This is wrong and we must vehemently contradict these slanders.” DAZN boss Segev also rejected the DFL’s representation of the currently interrupted TV rights auction as incorrect
The London-based CEO wrote to the clubs, “even though legal steps have already been taken to put an end to the whole thing and a warning has been sent to the DFL management.” The global company will “initiate arbitration proceedings on April 30 and reserves the right to take further legal action.” The DFL did not want to comment on this on Sunday.
Only a later payment of millions?
The DFL had previously informed the clubs that 80 million euros from the current TV contract would not be paid out as planned. “The distribution rate for June 2024 will be reduced from the original 127 million euros to 47 million euros,” says a DFL letter to the 36 clubs, which is also available to the dpa.
The DFL letter goes on to say: “The reason for this is that proceeds of EUR 80 million can only be collected at a later date this year, as payments from partners could not be made on the contractual due dates. On request The partners in question had to make agreements about later payments.” According to reports, DAZN wants to pay its share of the missing money in December. It is currently not known which company it is about besides DAZN.
The DFL informed the clubs about the financial hole in circular 206. It had previously made serious allegations against the internet sports broadcaster in circular 205. This is about the dispute over the award of TV rights package B for the 2025/26 to 2028/29 seasons. According to dpa information, Sky received this, but it is claimed by its pay competitor DAZN.
Threat of legal action
“DAZN is once again deliberately misrepresenting facts, both in its most recent letters to the DFL and in public statements, making abbreviations and attempting to mislead the public,” it said in the first DFL letter to the clubs.
DAZN’s actions with the threat of legal action “seem to primarily serve one goal: to drive a wedge into the league and to sow doubts that the people in the committees and management act exclusively in the interests of the Bundesliga and 2nd Bundesliga “, wrote the DFL to the clubs. “The aim is apparently to create the impression that the DFL rejected a much more lucrative offer without reason and against all economic reason. This absurd claim has no basis.”