Ligue 1 sides Paris St. Germain
and Olympique de Marseille "will not talk to Canal Plus until the end of
the season" after footage from the TV channel was used by the French Football League (LFP) to suspend PSG striker Zlatan Ibrahimović and Marseille
forward Dimitri Payet. The LFP disciplinary committee
used Canal Plus footage against Ibrahimović and Payet, "who were suspended on Thursday for four and two games
respectively for using abusive language against referees last month." Canal Plus "is one of the two channels, with BeIN Sport, to broadcast the French Ligue 1" (REUTERS, 4/10). ... Rai "secured the domestic broadcast rights to Italy's Coppa Italia until 2018." The public broadcaster will pay €67M ($70.6M) to show Italian club football's elite knock-out competition for three seasons from '15-16. It "saw off competition from Mediaset after a tender, drawn up by Infront Sports & Media, was issued by Lega Calcio." The league is believed to have wanted to secure €84M ($88.56M) for the rights "but Rai's outlay is still higher than the value of the current deal," which is thought to be around €60M ($63.27M). As part of the agreement, Rai "will also broadcast the Supercoppa, which pits the league champions against the Coppa Italia winners" (SOCCEREX, 4/13). ... The UFC and Extreme Sports Channel announced that ESC secured the exclusive live rights to air UFC events on its Polish feed. This four-year deal sees ESC air all live UFC events, consisting of more than 40 events from around the world every year (UFC). ... The 2015 British Basketball League playoff final at London's O2 Arena on May 10 will be shown live on the BBC Sport website and BBC Red Button (BBC).
