Storm warning on French football, shaken by the TV rights crisis. – Loïc Venance / AFP
The Mediapro earthquake continues to produce aftershocks. The withdrawal of the Sino-Spanish group and the end of its Téléfoot channel in February plunged French football into the doldrums. While the issue of TV rights for the upcoming season remains unanswered,
The Parisian indicated that a reduction of Ligue 1 from 20 to 18 clubs (as between 1997 and 2002) could be effective fairly quickly, perhaps as early as the 2022-2023 season.
The daily assures that the subject was widely debated during the board of directors of the LFP on April 21 according to a very simple observation: since the cake is shrinking visibly, so much to be less numerous to share it. Canal +, which has been blowing hot and cold since he recovered the entire L1 championship, would push in favor of this reduction of the elite, which Vincent Labrune, president of the LFP, would approve.
Aulas would lean for a 16-club L1
The encrypted channel has also made it known that it was only interested in the short term in the dissemination of the biggest posters of L1. Certain influential leaders, like the Lyonnais Jean-Michel Aulas, would even campaign for a championship with 16. The clubs carried away by the current crisis would then quite simply not be replaced.