President of the Club League associates lower diffusion of the I League abroad with the lack of centralization
The lower diffusion of I Liga games in countries such as Brazil, France and England is associated with the absence of a centralized audiovisual rights model, said this Friday the president of the Portuguese Professional Football League (LPFP).
“The LPFP has a data center, a project that I started three years ago and through which I can know through an algorithm what the forecast of assistance and television share will be or how the dynamics of a community will be commercially leveraged if a game takes place on a specific day and time. If there is a data center that can give us this information, it must be the LPFP that regulates this issue”, highlighted Pedro Proença.
The director spoke as the only speaker on the panel “The Portugal League as a central agent for the growth of professional football in Portugal”, as part of the Thinking Football summit, which began on Thursday and will run until Saturday, at Pavilhão Rosa Mota, in Porto.
“We are 20 years behind in this matter and a lot has been said, because there is a desire to understand how much this centralized model can create for the clubs themselves in terms of wealth. I am much more concerned about what we have lost in the quality of product because it is not centralized. The big differentiating factor is the superior quality in this best experience that we want to deliver to the fan”, he said.
The television centralization of the I and II Leagues will be completed by 2028/29 and will make it impossible for clubs to individually sell the rights to their games, without interfering with current contracts, reflecting the “great strategic axis” since Pedro Proença’s arrival at presidency of the LPFP, a position he holds for the third consecutive term.
“It will be a mandate of affirmation as a Portuguese football brand and we will be able to truly do what, from our perspective, should have been done 20 years ago: internationalize a brand, centralize these audiovisual rights, consolidate our positioning and, something that It’s essential this year to work for the fans”, he said.
Assuring that “no club will lose with this model”, the director highlighted the need for football as an “entertainment activity that competes with all others” to take notice of the changes that have recently affected the “consumer profile”.
“The way young people consume football today is completely different from my time. Boys can’t stand 90 minutes of football. Fans want to know what’s going on in the locker room or in the tunnel and what the players think. If we If we don’t understand that we can only promote this product centrally, we won’t understand this phenomenon. Not understanding this means not revitalizing the structure of the football industry. We have to have that capacity. That role is up to the directors”, he acknowledged.
Pedro Proença encompassed the lack of centralization among the factors responsible for the decrease in the competitiveness of Portuguese clubs in European competitions, along with the UEFA ranking scoring system and the tax costs inherent to the activity.
“If we want to have highly competitive teams internationally, we have to generate competitiveness internally. This distribution of wealth has to be more equitable and, in this way, centralization has a fundamental role in balancing what are medium and small clubs with the big ones. Those who will only benefit are the big ones, because if they have a stronger internal competitive level, they will be stronger once their international participation arrives. Not understanding this is not understanding anything”, he added.
