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The French Professional Football League (LFP) announced Canal+ and Kwesé Sports acquired the media rights to Ligue 1 in sub-Saharan Africa for €30M. BeIN Media Group, which bought the Ligue 1 int’l rights in ’14, sold the sub-Saharan Africa rights to the two broadcasters. Canal+ Afrique was awarded the French-language rights and Kwesé Sports will hold the English and Portuguese-language rights. The deals will run from the ’18-19 season through ’23-24. On Wednesday, LFP CEO Didier Quillot told SBD Global, “In sub-Saharan Africa, we issued a tender in December and we got the results back last week. The value of the TV rights will be multiplied by three, going from €10M ($12M) to €30M ($36M). It is due to what is happening in France with football. We now have stars coming in like Neymar and the show is improving.” The LFP also issued a tender for Ligue 1 rights for North America in December and Quillot said that he expects more than 10 bids for those rights. The LFP will review the North American bids at the end of this week. Quillot: “I don’t see any reason why we should not do as well as we did in Africa.”
