The reform is framed as essential to stabilise French football’s finances and governance and to sharpen decision-making during crises like broadcasting rights negotiations.

They acknowledge collective club responsibility for past failures and call for decisive action to prevent permanent decline of clubs, the Ligue 1 product, and the broader French football ecosystem.

Reforms should restore competitiveness and prevent a widening gap with other top European leagues, warning that failure to change could devalue the French championship over time.

A group of owners and representatives from four Ligue 1 clubs—Le Havre, Lens, Marseille, and Rennes—publish a tribune calling for deep governance reform in French professional football.

They identify a core problem: declining broadcast rights revenue driven by strategic missteps and governance errors by the sport’s governing bodies, including the LFP.

The authors contend the LFP’s 1901-law non-profit model isn’t suitable for football’s multi-hundred-million-euro scale and propose turning the LFP into a commercial company with Premier League‑style governance, including a clubs’ assembly and a supervisory board with FIFA/FFF representation and a CVC-funded partner.

Guillaume Cerutti of Stade Rennais teams up with Frank McCourt, Joseph Oughourlian, and Jean-Michel Roussier to publicly advocate for major governance changes in Le Monde.

The crisis context includes failed rights deals (Mediapro, DAZN, Ligue 1+ platform) and BeIN Sports securing FIFA World Cup 2026 rights despite an existing Ligue 1+ agreement, with leadership changes at LFP Media.

The World Cup 2026 rights award to BeIN Sports under unclear conditions and the resignation of LFP Media chief Nicolas de Tavernost highlight internal divisions within the LFP board.

The piece emphasizes a broader crisis in the professional football economy, pointing to the failure of Ligue 1+ and contentious FIFA rights decisions as evidence of governance fractures.

They urge the government to draft a bill reforming governance of professional sport, backed by two deputies, and call for vigilance from public authorities and the Competition Authority over PSG-BeIN ownership unity.