Nicolas de Tavernost says ‘club divisions and conflicts of interest’ were behind LFP Media exit | OneFootball

Nicolas de Tavernost stepped back from his role as CEO of LFP Media back in February. In a book released last week, the former head of M6, now the President of Stade Rennais’ Supervisory Board, revealed the reasons behind that exit.

De Tavernost left his role earlier this year. His exit came amid BeIN Sports’ attempts to secure the broadcasting rights for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. LFP Media-run Ligue 1 Plus had looked to scoop up those rights. Doing so was seen as a means of retaining the subscribers that the league-owned channel had accumulated during their debut season. The fear was that subscribers would unsubscribe during the interseason. Broadcasting the World Cup was seen as a means of preventing an exodus from the platform, which in turn would further decrease the already limited funds that clubs were receiving from TV rights.

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In his new book, La télé comme jamais (extracts transcribed by L’Équipe), de Tavernost has explained his exit from the organisation. “I am thinking about the launch of Ligue 1 Plus and the pitfalls that we had to overcome. It’s not that the LFP team wasn’t professional – that was needed to launch a platform project in less than three months – it’s not that its launch wasn’t a success with its one million subscribers, but the divisions between the club and the conflicts of interest ended up taking over,” he said.

He continued, “I had negotiated, for Ligue 1 Plus, paid exclusivity for 104 World Cup matches. For a platform that we had just launched, it was a considerable asset. The contract was signed, and then, at the last moment, the rights got away from us and to the benefit of BeIN Sports (who have links to Paris Saint-Germain’s QSI owners), in conditions that didn’t seem normal. I thought that we had to contest this decision and defend the interests of Ligue 1 Plus. I wasn’t backed up. In these conditions, I don’t see how I could continue, so I left LFP Media.”

GFFN | Luke Entwistle