Rebellion over Visit Qatar shirt deal exposes balance of power in Ligue 1

This is how a senior Ligue 1 club executive put it: “Without PSG, we can’t survive. But we can’t live with them either.” Few of his colleagues at other French clubs would disagree. For “PSG” read “Qatar”.

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On one hand, Paris Saint-Germain have been transformed by the hundreds of millions spent on acquiring star players after Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) rescued the club from bankruptcy in 2011, and have dominated French football to such a degree that of the 33 major trophies on offer since the 2012-13 season, only 10 have escaped the Parisian juggernaut.

On the other, many – most – of the clubs PSG have crushed on their way to near-hegemony at home would have faced insurmountable financial problems had the Qatari network beIN Sports, whose chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi also presides over PSG, QSI and the European Club Association ECA, not been willing to pay above market rates for the domestic broadcasting rights of Ligue 1.

Until now, that is, when something like an uprising has shaken an uneasy status quo borne out of necessity, self-interest and, as the same executive puts it, “cowardice”. Two of France’s biggest clubs, Lyon and Marseille, have led the way in rebelling against what they say amounts to a surrender to the all-powerful Qataris; at least according to French media, that is. The league has so far declined to commenton the matter.

The trigger for the unrest is the decision of the French League, LFP, to accept a payment of €16.4m (£13.7m) made by the Qatar Tourism Authority, to be shared equally between Ligue’s 18 clubs in exchange for advertising the Visit Qatar brand.

This is meant to be a sweetener to complement the Qatari-owned beIN Sports’ purchase of some TV domestic rights at a knockdown price. Lyon and Marseille now say they will not play ball. Lyon, owned by the American investor John Textor, who also has stakes in Botafogo, Molenbeek and Crystal Palace, raged at LFP’s “incompetence” and said it considered the LFP-Visit Qatar partnership as “a violation of [Lyon’s] rights” and so were “null and void”.

Marseille followed suit, letting it be known that under no circumstances would they allow Qatar to tarnish their jersey. Given the club’s poisonous rivalry with PSG, this was to be expected.

When the sponsorship proposal was first made, nobody seemed to care much about what it entailed for each of the clubs. All of them voted in favour. The windfall was modest – €730,000 (£608,000) per club in L1, €170,000 (£142,000) in L2 - but welcome all the same, given the catastrophic drop in domestic TV rights which has seen LFP fall well short of its optimistic valuation of those rights at €1bn per season for the 2024-29 cycle.

Some context is needed here. LFP had first burned its bridges with L1’s established broadcaster Canal+ before being burnt themselves in the collapse of the deal they had signed with Spanish company Mediapro in 2018. Cap in hand, LFP had to accept a far more modest offer from Amazon Prime and beIN. But even that discounted deal was better than what a desperate LFP had to accept last summer, when none of the expected bidders made a move, and the domestic rights were sold for less than half of what had been expected.

Canal+, which has decided to turn its back on L1, now pays more – half a billion euros – for the rights to Uefa club competitions than L1 is making for the sale of all of its domestic rights, something which a TV rights specialist described as “insane”.

Given that Ligue 1 clubs derive at least half of their revenue – 70% of which goes on players’ wages – from what the majority of them now face is not another bump in the road, but an existential threat.

This explains why those most in danger, those who “make up the numbers” as another L1 executive put it, have so far refrained from joining the protest. They need Qatar’s money. “The LFP is run by and for the big guys, those who get their money from taking part in European competitions, not us,” said an L1 club chairman who wished to remain anonymous.

“The balance has gone. What Lyon and Marseille are saying about the Visit Qatar deal is nonsense. There’s never been any plan to have their names on our shirts. It’s up to each club to value what they can offer Visit Qatar in counterpart for their money, but naming was never part of the discussion.”

Why, then, would Lyon and Marseille make such a fuss? One explanation is that some of the bigger clubs, which, in private, will support the stance of the rebels, are not happy that the money from the Qatar Tourism Authority is to be shared equally, when the €1.5bn deal passed between LFP and the US private equity fund CVC Partners in 2022 was heavily weighted in favour of PSG and clubs which had the best Uefa ranking coefficient.

The case of Marseille is different, when the very idea of promoting anything related to Qatar will drive even moderate supporters to distraction. A solution will have to be found, as this rebellion’ has prompted beIN Sports to withhold the payment of €80m it owes LFP so far. This, in itself, is perhaps the lesson of this crisis. In the end, in French football, it is still Qatar which holds the cards that matter.