Dazn has been ordered to honour the remainder of an €84.2m (£73.5m) TV deal with Belgium’s Jupiler Pro League this season after the streaming service announced last month it was terminating the contract.
In a judgment from Belgium’s centre for arbitration and mediation (Cepani), sent to the clubs on Wednesday morning, Dazn has been told it must continue broadcasting and paying for the Pro League until 30 June, unless Cepani declares otherwise. That would cost it about €53m.
Dazn has also been ordered to pay 25% of the Pro League’s arbitration costs and warned that it will be fined €50,000 a day if it does not meet specified requirements.
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Dazn had triggered the legal dispute by withholding November’s contractual payment of €6.6m to the Pro League, although it continued to broadcast matches, on the grounds that it had been unable to agree a financially viable distribution deal with Belgium’s TV operators.
Despite months of negotiations, Dazn was unable to secure carriage deals with the Belgian TV networks Proximus and Telenet, with the result that Pro League games have been available only via its own app this season, a model the company said was not commercially viable.
Twelve months ago Dazn won a five-year contract for Belgian rights to the Pro League until 2030 worth €84.2m a season to the clubs, but claimed that without a wider distribution deal it could not continue under the original terms.
An arbitration tribunal on the matter is due to be constituted in the spring and Cepani could then issue interim measures.
Dazn succeeded this year in breaking its contract to broadcast Ligue 1 in France, one season into a five-year deal, agreeing to pay €100m to the Ligue de Football Professionnel in compensation after a vote of the clubs.
That decision continues to have major ramifications for French football, with Ligue 1 responding to the collapse of its TV deal by becoming the first of Europe’s top five leagues to launch a direct-to-consumer (DTC) streaming service to broadcast matches.
Subscriber numbers have been disappointing, however, with the result that Ligue 1 has forecast paying only €142m to the clubs in media rights fees this season, including €30.1m to the champions. Liverpool received £174.9m from the Premier League after being crowned champions last season.
Many French clubs remain unhappy that Dazn was allowed to walk away without a legal challenge, feelings that the result of the Belgian arbitration are likely to magnify.
Dazn’s position in the market is curious, given it has defaulted on two major rights deals with European leagues but last year paid $1bn to secure exclusive global rights for the Club World Cup, albeit after receiving an equity injection from Saudi Arabia’s Surj Sports Investments.
Dazn, despite its problems in France and Belgium, last month extended its contract with La Liga to broadcast five matches each week in Spain until 2032 in a deal costing it about €500m each season, an increase of 6% on its previous deal.
Lorin Parys, the CEO of the Pro League, said: “We are satisfied that Dazn must honour its commitments regarding, among other things, production, distribution, payments and negotiations with telecom operators. The winners of this ruling are our fans, our clubs and Belgian football as a whole.”
Dazn has been approached for comment.
