Eight of the nine matches of the French basketball championship will not be broadcast this weekend due to unpaid debts from the Skweek platform in conflict with the L’Equipe group, according to a document consulted by AFP. Only the poster for this 30th day, between Lyon-Villeurbanne and Paris Basketball, will be broadcast on Sunday (7:05 p.m.) by the L’Equipe channel, according to an email from the general director of the National Basketball League (LNB) sent to the club presidents on Friday.

A first meeting was not broadcast on Wednesday by Skweek, Roanne-Monaco, due to the termination of the agreement between the platform and the L’Equipe group which sublicensed the broadcasting rights. The reason: unpaid debts from Skweek, owned by Russian-Hungarian businessman and owner of AS Monaco basketball Aleksej Fedoricsev, to the production company 21 Prod, a subsidiary of L’Equipe, a source explained on Wednesday internal to the L’Équipe group. These arrears amount to around two million euros, AFP learned from a source with knowledge of the matter.

“Despite the motivation displayed by Skweek to find solutions, without paying its dues to the L’Equipe group, it seems complicated to us that a favorable outcome can be found quickly,” said LNB CEO Fabrice Jouhaud in his email. “For legal reasons and to respect ongoing discussions, we cannot reactivate LNBTV via Keemotion this weekend,” he adds, referring to the automatic production system, with a single camera, that the League used before the The emergence of Skweek at the start of the 2022-2023 season. “In 48 hours, we concluded an agreement to broadcast Elite with L’Equipe until the end of the season,” he explains.

One match per day of the regular season, the Sunday evening poster, will continue to be broadcast unencrypted and, in the play-offs, the channel will have a volume of six matches to broadcast between the quarter-finals and the semi-finals, as well as the entire finals.

The LNB, which met with the Federation and the platform on Friday afternoon “in order to find rapid solutions on all other available rights”, also asks clubs to maintain “Skweek’s visibility systems” , namely field markings and advertising panels. A new meeting is planned for the beginning of next week, we learned from a source with knowledge of the discussions.