Telecomproviders approach ACM for Eredivisie television rights

The consortium of telecom parties has asked the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) to intervene in the direct award of the Eredivisie rights. The exclusive negotiation and an impending deal between Eredivisie CV (ECV) and Disney/ESPN for the TV rights to Eredivisie matches are, in the opinion of the consortium (Delta Fiber, KPN, Odido and VodafoneZiggo), contrary to the ban on cartels. The Eredivisie clubs sell their broadcasting rights collectively. This is permissible only if there is a fair and transparent bidding process (in compliance with Dutch and European legislation). To ensure that this happens, the consortium today submitted an enforcement request to the ACM.

The ACM has been asked to find that the direct award of the broadcasting rights to Disney/ESPN infringes the regulations. Pending this request, the consortium is going to take it for granted that the clubs will not yet make a final decision about the deal allegedly brokered by the ECV with Disney/ESPN. Earlier today, the companies sent a letter to the ECV and the Eredivisie clubs informing them of this.

The ACM can force the clubs, ECV and Disney to engage in a transparent bidding process, in line with its objective: “getting markets to work better for people and businesses.” All the major competitions in the European Union award the football broadcasting rights via a public bidding process. It is up to the ACM to decide whether to intervene on the basis of its own prioritization criteria.

In 2004, the ACM announced that the sale of football rights should take place by following a “transparent and non-discriminatory bidding and award process.” At that time, the ACM also argued that “the method of assessing the bids must be objective, transparent and controllable”.

Steps taken previously by the consortium
After many attempts to have discussions with the clubs, on September 14 the consortium sent a letter to the ECV to try once more to start talks about the future awards of the Eredivisie broadcasting rights. Yet again, the door remained hermetically sealed.

The consortium deplores the fact that the ECV refuses to enter into serious talks about the initial bid. “We can only guess what the reason behind that refusal is. We therefore see no course of action other than approach the ACM. Our preference would be to discuss the matter with the ECV and the clubs, but up to now we have been given no such opportunity. We take it for granted that, pending the enforcement request to the ACM, the clubs will now take no final decisions about the direct award to Disney,” says a spokesperson for the consortium.