Despite LFP Média’s hopes for recovery and promises of recovery, a decision with far-reaching consequences for all professional football clubs in France. This positioning of the DNCG could upset the summer of French football. For several months, Ligue 1 has been living at the pace of tensions over television rights. Discussions with DAZN, the 100% Ligue 1 channel assumptions, rumours of Canal+’s return… so many signals that testify to an overheated system. While Nicolas de Tavernost’s arrival at the head of LFP Media has led to a new dialogue with broadcasters, the horizon remains uncertain.
And behind the closed doors of the Paris offices of the LFP, the atmosphere is far from euphoria. Clubs are working hard to prepare for the next season, but there’s a question that obsesses financial management: how many will pay TV fees next season? Behind the scenes, several club presidents had already been concerned. The revenues of broadcasters are still uncertain, and the negotiations have, for the time being, no concrete guarantee.
Yet many clubs, year after year, anticipate sometimes optimistic amounts in their budgets — if not illusory. Player sales have also become a recurring adjustment variable. But when these transactions do not materialize, the differences widen. In addition to this, there are hard-pressed wage masses, and an ever-high dependency on subsidies and patrons.
As many frailties as the National Directorate of Management Control (DNCG), the “gendarme financière” of French football, closely monitors. And last Monday, at a meeting with LFP leaders, an unprecedented decision was made. According to the information of the DNCG President, Jean-Marc Mickeler, has asked all professional clubs not to include any euro from TV rights in their budget estimates for next season. A shock announcement, revealed behind closed doors, which has spread in all the financial directions of Ligue 1 and Ligue 2.
The justification is simple: uncertainty is too great, and past forecast errors can no longer be tolerated. According to Mickeler, it is not only TV rights that are problematic. It points to a deep structural problem: chronic losses, risky management, fictitious revenues and budgets inflated to speculation. Moreover, with a further EUR 200 million in duties, the situation would remain very worrying.
The message is clear: clubs must prepare for an austere season. End the hopes for guaranteed TV revenues. There is room for rigour, realism and transparency. A paradigm shift that, if respected, could upset the summer mercato and redraw the ambitions of many clubs… starting with theASSE.
In a tense context on the side of AS Monaco, the offensive milieu Eliesse Ben Seghir is going through a complicated period, between loss of confidence and fresh relations with his coach Adi Hütter. While the AS Monaco is fully committed to the race in Europe, with the ambition to hang up the Champions League, the Monegasques approach the trip to Geoffroy-Guichard in a heavy internal climate. Three days away from the end of the season, and while the men of Adi Hütter will have to face a Saint-Étienne team on mission to save his place in League 1, the club’s news is agitated by the case of Eliesse Ben Seghir.
The 20-year-old offensive environment, long regarded as one of the nuggets of the ASM, seems to have lost its place in the hierarchy. Between declining performance and critical attitude,