The parliamentary commission of inquiry presented its report on Wednesday after several months of work and hearings. From the management of the LFP by Vincent Labrune to the question of TV rights and the financial viability of Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 clubs, Michel Savin and Laurent Lafon revealed their 35 recommendations to reform French football.
After months of work and hearings from numerous players in French football, the parliamentary commission of inquiry submitted its report to the Senate this Wednesday. In front of the press, Laurent Lafon, president of the commission, and rapporteur Michel Savin delivered their conclusions on the management of French football.
>> Relive the speeches of senators Lafon and Savin on the French football crisis
In the sights of senators, in particular, the functioning of the LFP and Labrune governance. At the end of their meticulous work, the parliamentarians proposed a total of 35 recommendations on several major subjects.
Not without forgetting to recall the need for clarification of the statutes of the various bodies, and in particular around the delegation from the State to the Professional Football League, Michel Savin and Laurent Lafon have thus clearly targeted the remuneration of leaders of the LFP and its commercial company.
Labrune’s salary soon to be regulated?
If the double hat possibility of president of the League and boss of the commercial company is not called into question, it cannot generate double remuneration. Clearly, if an LFP employee is also a manager of the commercial company, he will only receive his salary via the LFP. Likewise, senators want a law to establish a ceiling on the amount of salaries of presidents of professional leagues.
“Introduce a ceiling on the remuneration of presidents of professional leagues, similar to that existing for public companies (€450,000) and limit the amount of their severance pay to six months of salary excluding bonuses”, thus provide the elected officials in recommendation 19 .
Before specifying in their proposal number 20: “Specify in the law that the function 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.”
A single broadcaster for L1, Al-Khelaïfi targeted?
The question of TV rights, after the terrible Mediapro crisis and the unsuccessful call for tenders for Ligue 1, also pushed senators to deeply question the current system. According to members of the upper house, the allocation of all championship matches to a single broadcaster will help combat piracy and provide better visibility for French football.
And at the time of the call for tenders itself, reduce the risks of conflicts of interest with a club boss or managing member of the LFP who is at the same time manager of a channel or a potential broadcaster . Without citing him, this directly points to the case of Nasser Al-Khelaïfi who in addition to his role as president of PSG is a member of the board of directors of the League as well as president of the beIN MEDIA GROUP.
Limit the number of players per team, refuse the Club World Cup
Always with a concern for the long-term viability of clubs, the parliamentary committee insisted on the need to limit certain expenses in clubs. In particular the payroll, still considered too high by senators. To achieve this, elected officials suggested limiting the number of professional players in French clubs to 30 footballers under contract in Ligue 1 and Ligue 2.
At the same time, Michel Savin and Laurent Lafon intend to take particular care of the health of the players. According to them, it seems inconceivable to overload their calendar with new matches. Therefore, we should “oppose” the FIFA Club World Cup project” and limit in law “the annual number of matches per professional player”.
The 35 recommendations of the commission for French football
- Specify in the sports code that professional leagues exercise a sub-delegation of public service in all of their areas of competence, including the management and marketing of sports rights which must fall within the framework of respect for the interests general discipline and the principle of solidarity.
- Impose on professional leagues the obligation to report on the implementation of their subdelegation to the federation and the State within the framework of an annual report.
- 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 to 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.
- Clarify federation-league relations: harmonize the durations of the delegation (4 years) and sub-delegation (5 years), provide for intervention by the Minister of Sports to resolve possible conflicts between a federation and a league, make the necessary legal adaptations to the development of women’s professional sport.
- Attach the control body provided for by article L. 132-2 of the sports code to the delegated sports federation with appropriate means.
- Give this control body reinforced monitoring missions on club accounts, including after the transfer period.
- Give the federations and the ministry responsible for sports a role in monitoring the recommendations of the control body.
- Give the control body and the Court of Auditors the mission of controlling the accounts of the professional leagues and their commercial subsidiaries as part of the implementation of subdelegation.
- 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 an increase in the ceiling of the levy on online sports betting.
- Strengthen the principle of pooling products accruing to sports companies (art. L. 333-3 of the sports code) by 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.
- Consider consolidating the “Buffet” tax by broadening its base according to methods to be determined to take into account the necessary diversification of club resources.
- 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.
- 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, in particular 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.
- Clarify article L. 333-1 of the sports code, with regard to the investor’s income from sports betting which cannot be included in the basis used to calculate the dividend.
- Make a clear distinction between the activities of professional leagues and those of their commercial companies by clearly separating the league from its subsidiary from an organic point of view (distinct services, personnel and managers) and financial point of view (clearly 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.
- Give the representative of the delegated federation a deliberative voice within the governing body of the commercial company.
- Involve the managers of sports companies in the governance of the commercial company created by a league, by 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 to formulate proposals for orientations for the marketing and management of rights.
- Promote the signing of a governance charter which makes club representatives within the league, its managers and those of the commercial company accountable in the exercise of their functions.
- Establish a ceiling on the remuneration of presidents of professional leagues, similar to that existing for public companies (€450,000) and limit the amount of their severance pay to six months of salary excluding bonuses.
- Specify in the law that the function 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.
- Supplement the applicable provisions regarding transparency in public life by establishing an obligation to declare interests and assets to the HATVP for league general directors.
- 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 practices, in particular with regard to the terms of allocation of remuneration and mission expenses.
- Establish, for administrators of professional leagues and their commercial companies, an obligation to declare conflicts of interest and an obligation to defer from decisions involving such conflicts.
- 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.
- Provide a minimum of five independent qualified administrators within professional leagues.
- Provide for the presence of a supporter representative with a consultative voice within the general assembly and the league board of directors.
- 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 consumer, by facilitating the allocation of rights to a single broadcaster and taking into account the generalization of new consumption patterns.
- Create an offense of piracy in the sports field, similar to that provided for by the intellectual property code regarding counterfeiting of copyright and related rights, not targeting the end consumer, but people who publish sports content illicitly.
- 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.
- Facilitate the implementation of voluntary agreements with the list of services to be blocked.
- Make player health a priority by curbing the increase in the number of competitions, opposing FIFA’s “Club World Cup” project and limiting the annual number of matches per professional player.
- Limit the number of professional football teams by establishing a maximum number of 30 professional player contracts per Ligue 1 or Ligue 2 club.
- Limit the share of staff remuneration by reducing the payroll ratio, set since 2022 at 70% of club revenues by the regulation of the National Directorate of Management Control (DNCG).
- Strengthen the DNCG’s control over club takeovers by establishing a blocking power (L. 132-2 of the sports code).
- Better limit and control multi-ownership in conjunction with UEFA and FIFA to preserve the fairness of sports competitions and protect the European sports model.
Jean-Guy Lebreton with Nicolas Pelletier
