Professional sport reform: what the National Assembly passed — and what the joint committee will have to settle

Adopted at first reading on 29 June (final text No. 322), the bill now heads to the joint Senate-Assembly committee (commission mixte paritaire, CMP), expected on 8 July, with the Government aiming for adoption before the end of the extraordinary session (20 July). Seven MPs, seven senators: the CMP will have to reconcile a text the Assembly hardened on several points with a lighter Senate version. Issue by issue, here is what stands firm and what is unlikely to make it through the joint filter.

Multi-club ownership: the most fragile measure of the shuttle. This was the coup de théâtre of the sitting. Late in the examination, and against the committee stage, MPs adopted an outright ban on multi-club ownership — owning a French club and another abroad — against the Government’s advice. The logic thus shifts from control (a DNCG power to object to capital transactions) to prohibition on principle. Our reading: this ban has every chance of falling in the CMP. It is absent from the Senate text, it was passed against the Government, and it is frontally contested by the clubs themselves. The minister, several club presidents and the LFP have all argued that such regulation should only be conceived at UEFA level, on pain of distorting competition between European leagues. The most likely scenario: deletion of the ban, return to strengthened control entrusted to the DNCG — the line of the Government and the rapporteurs. Worth watching: the control of disposals, for its part, was kept by MPs despite the Government’s advice and should survive where the ban falls.

Executive pay: a surprising regulation of federation salaries. MPs confirmed the capping of federation officials’ pay (elected officers) at three times the social security ceiling — around €12,000 gross per month, in the order of €144,000 a year — and above all extended it, on the floor, to salaried staff, against what the Government was asking in the name of contractual freedom. What is surprising is not only the principle but the severity of the rule given the organisations concerned. A federation like the FFT, which organises Roland-Garros, steers an annual budget in the region of €460 million, €395 million of which for the tournament alone in 2025. On what grounds should its employees be paid less, as a matter of principle, than those of its providers and subcontractors? Federations, moreover, have their pay scales validated by their elected bodies. Two comparisons suffice to measure the gap. On the public side, the State caps the pay of executives of its own companies at €450,000 a year — three times the ceiling imposed on federations. On the sport side, the Alpes 2030 or Paris 2024 organising committees could recruit directors and deputy directors at market level, where a federation executive would be priced out. The CMP should probably come back on the extension of the cap to salaried staff, which is legally most fragile.

Whistle to whistle: adopted with the unexpected and contradictory (absurd, even?) backing of the Government. On the floor, and against the committee vote, MPs adopted the « whistle-to-whistle ban » — the prohibition of sports betting advertising five minutes before, during and five minutes after a televised fixture — this time with the Government’s support, and against the rapporteur’s advice (!), carried by ANJ pressure and the World Cup context. At the same time, the executive maintained its refusal of the lighter amendments banning the naming of venues and competitions and shirt sponsorship, defended in committee on the grounds that betting companies are a useful source of financing for sport — up to 50 to 60 % of budgets in basketball, handball or volleyball. The contradiction is there, and it deserves to be stated. By protecting naming and sponsorship while banning on-screen advertising during the broadcast of every sporting competition in every sport, the Government forgets that an operator displayed on a shirt or on a stadium’s name is precisely visible on screen for the entire duration of the match — that is, in the very heart of the « whistle-to-whistle » window. One of two things: either the mechanism covers spot advertising only, in which case it is easily circumvented and therefore pointless; or it covers all on-air exposure, in which case it catches through the window the naming and sponsorship it claimed to preserve through the door. It is on this definition of scope that the CMP will play out — a direct stake for the clubs and leagues whose betting partnerships finance a substantial share of budgets, but also for the media (TV and radio), who see opening up before them an unexpected sector-wide ban that could well spread.

Broadcasting rights and salary cap: the irritants withdrawn. The obligation to broadcast one match per week free-to-air was deleted on the floor, and the freedom to structure rights packages restored. The same goes for the capping of payroll at 65 % of turnover. The « salary cap » proper is nevertheless kept and even consolidated: article 9 ter broadens its base to advantages of any kind paid or promised, directly or indirectly, which legally secures the mechanism — starting with the Top 14’s — and closes the door to circumvention via image or sponsorship contracts. These were the two demands publicly carried by professional sport stakeholders: they are satisfied. The Senate text being already more flexible on this point, the CMP should not revisit it.

Governance: what holds. The 25 % cap on clubs’ weight in federal assemblies is kept, despite recurrent criticism from clubs. Federations will be able to withdraw sub-delegation from leagues, after Government approval, in the event of serious failure or of a decision creating serious financing difficulties: a structuring lever in the FFF-LFP relationship. The integrity check, refocused by the Government on executives only, is secured. These points are durable and are not variables for the CMP.

Piracy and betting: consolidation, and still-perfectible drafting on young bettors. The anti-piracy package — ARCOM’s sanctioning power, blacklist extended to sport, framing of influencers — is consensual and will pose no shuttle difficulty. The betting package slightly less so. The capping of losses for 18-25 year-olds rests on two weaknesses the CMP may want to correct. First, the mechanism is explicitly designed to cover online betting only, excluding physical points of sale: this asymmetry of treatment between channels invites an equal-treatment challenge. Second, targeting the 18-25 age bracket alone, isolated among adults, weakens the measure with regard to proportionality. The legislature’s intention of better controlling excessive gambling, in particular among the youngest, will in any event be satisfied, given the consensus expressed on these issues and the Government’s backing.

The CMP’s course. The gaps to close are identified: a multi-club ownership ban present on the Assembly side and absent on the Senate side — bound to disappear or to morph into simple control; a pay cap extended to salaried staff that the Government will want to tighten; and the scope of the « whistle to whistle » as the real hot spot. For the rest, the Assembly delivered to the clubs the essentials of what they were asking for on TV rights and payroll. The text emerging from the CMP will, in all likelihood, be amended on these points before a purely formal vote in public sitting of the Senate and the Assembly at the end of the parliamentary session, from 20 July.