The 36 Bundesliga clubs cannot currently complain about a lack of mail in their email boxes. After the German Football League (DFL) sent two letters to the clubs regarding Bundesliga television rights on Friday, a letter from the streaming provider Dazn followed this Sunday. You could dismiss this as entertaining banter, but it’s about a lot of money and the financing of some somewhat cash-strapped Bundesliga clubs.
The accusations that the two sides are now making against each other are also unusually severe. It’s about “slander” that must be vehemently contradicted, writes Dazn boss Shay Segev in a four-page letter on which “urgent” is written in red at the top right (available to the SZ). “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,” it says. A DFL circular gave the impression that Dazn “deliberately caused massive payment defaults to the 36 clubs in the Bundesliga and 2nd Bundesliga.” This is wrong. Legal steps have already been taken “to put an end to the whole thing.” Dazn sent a warning to the DFL management.
The DFL, in turn, had previously accused Dazn of deliberately misrepresenting facts and misleading the public. The approach primarily serves one goal, namely to drive a wedge into the league and to sow doubts that the DFL is acting exclusively in the interests of the Bundesliga.
80 million euros will only come to the clubs later
The origin of the dispute is the award of the television rights to the Bundesliga for the cycle from 2025/26 to 2028/29. The DFL maintains that everything has gone right so far. Dazn’s offer was not “in accordance with the tender” and was therefore not taken into account.
When the award was made, the so-called package B was auctioned first. It is by far the most expensive and important and includes the live rights to a total of 196 Bundesliga games, especially on Friday and Saturday afternoons. The value for the entire rights period is around 1.5 billion euros. Sky was awarded the contract. Dazn was unable to provide a valid bank guarantee, but has since submitted one. The Dazn offer was at least 320 million euros higher for four seasons, Dazn boss Segev now writes. They were ignored by the DFL “without applying the necessary care”.
Dazn is now taking legal action against this and is initially appealing to an arbitration tribunal, but also reserves the right to take further legal steps “in order to achieve a lawfully conducted tender process and a lawful award of package B to Dazn.” The auction, which is currently suspended by the DFL, could take a long time. Former football official Wolfgang Holzhäuser has suggested former DFL managing director Christian Seifert as a mediator in the billion-dollar dispute.
The 36 Bundesliga clubs fear for the television billions. At the same time as the dispute, the DFL announced on Friday that less money than planned would be paid out to the 36 professional clubs in just two months; the sum would be reduced from the original 127 million euros to 47 million euros. The reason: 80 million euros would only be collected from rights holders at a later point in the year. Dazn boss Segev writes that the postponement had already been agreed in February. This is a normal process, the DFL has expressly agreed to the new conditions voluntarily and by mutual agreement. By the way, it cannot be ruled out that there will be further emails in the future.