2024-10-31 15:49:00
credit: Sport Buzz Business
This Wednesday, the Senate’s fact-finding mission on the intervention of investment funds in French professional football presented its conclusions after 6 months of work and hearings.
For more than an hour, senators Michel Savin (rapporteur) and Laurent Lafon (President of the Commission) returned in detail to the various subjects scrutinized by the Senate and in particular TV rights, the main source of income for the Professional Football League and the clubs.
“sport business, stop or still? This question sums up the state of mind that guided our information mission”
From the Mediapro episode to Prime Video including the financial and legal arrangement of the commercial company LFP Media and the entry of the CVC fund or even the salary of Vincent Labrune, the report of more than 150 pages is obviously not to be missed! A document that you can consult here in its entirety.
Some of the recommendations ⬇️#senate #football #lfp pic.twitter.com/4KzOhHocrU
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This information mission thus formulates 35 recommendations with a view to improving governance and strengthening the regulation of French professional football.
“sport business, stop or still? This question sums up the state of mind that guided our information mission” explained Michel Savin in the preamble.
The 35 recommendations of the Senate information mission for French football
1 : Specify in the sports code that professional leagues exercise public service subdelegation in all of their areas of competence, including the management and marketing of sporting rights which must be part of respecting the general interest of the discipline and the principle of solidarity.
2 : Impose on professional leagues the obligation to report on the implementation of their subdelegation to the federation and the State as part of an annual report.
3 : Consecrate at the legislative level the power of control and reform by the federation of the acts of the professional league and provide the possibility for the federation and for the State of withdraw at any time all or part of the subdelegation in the event of non-compliance with the agreement binding the league to the federation or failure to serve the general interest of the discipline.
4 : Clarify federation-league relations : harmonize the durations of the delegation (4 years) and the sub-delegation (5 years), provide for the intervention of the minister responsible for sports to resolve possible conflicts between a federation and a league, make the legal adaptations necessary for the development of sport female professional.
5 : Attach the control body provided for by article L. 132-2 of the sports code to the delegated sports federation with appropriate means.
6 : Give this control body reinforced monitoring missions on club accounts, including after the transfer period.
7 : Give the federations and the ministry responsible for sports a role in monitoring the recommendations of the control body.
8 : Give to the supervisory body and the Court of Auditors the mission of controlling the accounts of professional leagues and their commercial subsidiaries as part of the implementation of subdelegation.
9 : Allow the Ministry of Sports and the National Sports Agency to benefit from the dynamism of tax revenues from online sports betting, by means of a increase in the levy ceiling on online sports betting.
10 : Strengthen the principle of product pooling falling to sports companies (art. L. 333-3 of the sports code) ensuring a fair distribution of resources in order to guarantee the long-term viability of the championship, thanks to the setting of a maximum distribution ratio of 1 to 3 of income between professional clubs.
11 : Consider a consolidation of the “Buffet” tax by broadening its base according to methods to be determined to take into account the necessary diversification of club resources.
12 : Provide for the approval of the statutes of the commercial company, the partners’ agreement, the investment protocol, all of their annexes and their modifications by the general assembly of the federation and by order of the minister responsible for sports.
13 : Supervise the distribution of the contribution of an investment fund to a professional league and provide for approval of this distribution by the general assembly of the federation and by the Ministry of Sports, particularly with regard to the principles of unity, solidarity and pooling; entrust the control body with the mission of controlling the use of the funds thus distributed.
14 : Clarify article L. 333-1 of the sports code, regarding income from sports betting which cannot be included in the basis used to calculate the investor’s dividend.
15 : Make a clear distinction between the activities of professional leagues and those of their commercial companies in clearly separating the league from its subsidiary from an organic point of view (separate services, personnel and managers) and financial (well-differentiated budgets), the league having to assume a role of coordination between the general interest, the interests of the clubs and those of the commercial company.
16 : Give the representative of the delegated federation a deliberative voice within the governing body of the commercial company.
17 : Involve the leaders of sports companies in the governance of the commercial company created by a league, providing that they are represented within a strategic advisory committee, provided for by the statutes of the commercial company, responsible for evaluating the strategy and formulating proposals for orientations for marketing and management rights.
18 : Promote the signing of a governance charter which holds club representatives within the league, its managers and those of the commercial company accountable in the exercise of their functions.
19 : Establish a ceiling on the remuneration of presidents of professional leaguessimilar to that existing for public companies (€450,000) and limit the amount of their severance pay to six months of salary excluding bonuses.
20 : Specify in the law that the position of president of the commercial subsidiary of a professional league is not remunerated when exercised by a representative of the League. Otherwise, cap this remuneration as recommended in the previous recommendation.
21 : Complete the applicable provisions regarding transparency in public life by establishing a obligation to declare interests and assets at the HATVP for the general directors of the leagues
22 : Mandatory establishment of an audit committee and a remuneration committee, including independent directors, within the governing bodies of professional leagues in order to improve transparency and promote good practicesin particular with regard to the terms of allocation of remuneration and mission expenses.
23 : Establish, for the administrators of professional leagues and their commercial companies, a obligation to declare conflicts of interest and an obligation to defer on decisions involving such conflicts.
24 : Introduce an incompatibility between the function of member of the board of directors of a professional league or its commercial company and the holding of interests or the exercise of functions within an audiovisual broadcasting company.
25 : Provide a minimum of five independent qualified administrators within professional leagues.
26 : Plan for presence of a supporter representative with consultative voice within the general assembly and the board of directors of the leagues.
27 : Given the rise in power of competitions competing with Ligue 1, which is reconfiguring the sports rights market, rethink the regulation of calls for tenders in the interest of the consumerby facilitating the allocation of rights to a single broadcaster and taking into account the generalization of new methods of broadcasting.
28 : Create a piracy offense in the sports fieldsimilar to that provided for by the intellectual property code in matters of counterfeiting of copyright and related rights, not targeting the final consumer, but people who publish sports content illegally.
29 : Allow real-time processing of IP addresses to be blocked, by authorized and sworn agents possibly external to Arcom, but under its control for the a priori and a posteriori validation of the procedures and tools implemented.
30 : Facilitate the implementation of voluntary agreements with alternative DNS and VPN providers by allowing Arcom to notify their signatories of the list of services to be blocked.
31 : Make player health a priority by curbing the increase in the number of competitionsby opposing FIFA’s “Club World Cup” project and limiting the annual number of matches per professional player.
32 : Limit the number of professional football teams by establishing a maximum number of 30 professional player contracts per Ligue 1 or Ligue 2 club.
33 : Limit the share of staff remuneration by reducing the payroll ratio, set since 2022 at 70% of club revenue by the regulation of the National Directorate of Management Control (DNCG).
34 : Strengthen control of the DNCG on club takeovers by establishing a blocking power (L. 132-2 of the sports code).
35 : Better limit and control timeshare in conjunction with UEFA and FIFA to preserve the fairness of sporting competitions and protect the European sporting model.
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He purpose of tackling online piracy in sports, ensuring a more efficient and immediate response to illegal broadcasting activities.
30: Encourage collaboration between leagues, federations, and enforcement authorities to strengthen measures against piracy and protect sports rights.
31: Mandate that revenue generated from penalties against piracy is invested back into sports development and community programs.
32: Introduce educational campaigns aimed at fans and consumers to raise awareness about the impacts of piracy on sports and the broader community.
33: Promote the establishment of a dedicated task force to oversee the implementation of anti-piracy measures within the sports sector.
34: Regularly review and update the legal framework surrounding sports broadcasting and piracy in light of technological advances and changing consumer behaviors.
35: Foster international cooperation amongst sports organizations and governments to combat piracy on a global scale, sharing best practices and collaborative strategies.
Conclusion
The implementation of these recommendations aims to enhance governance, increase transparency, and ensure the long-term viability and integrity of French football. By reinforcing the relationship between leagues and federations and addressing the challenges presented by modern broadcasting and piracy, these measures seek to benefit all stakeholders in the football ecosystem.
