By Paul Nicholson in Manama, Bahrain
May 7 – Following a meeting of its executive committee The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has agreed a broadcast and commercial rights strategy for its new rights cycle that would begin in 2020 at the end of its current deal with Lagardere Sports.
The new contract will be the biggest rights sales deal ever for the region and is likely to dwarf the $1 billion deal completed by the Confederation of African Football for its rights, and could even make significant in-roads into the FIFA commercial sales numbers as the AFC grows its business aggressively in its region while FIFA battles to sign new partners to its flailing brand.
While FIFA is facing dipping revenues and a relatively uncertain financial future as it battles to rebuild a coherent and credible political and commercial organisation, in contrast sponsor and TV cash and commitment has grown at the confederations for their competition programmes. UEFA reported a record 2016 national team championships and its club competition continually beats allcomers; CONCACAF is starting to grow its commercial proposition credibly and rapidly after the corruption scandals in its administration – it’s Congress will approve a new budget this week that is expected to show record revenue projections; and the AFC, covering the world’s fastest growing economic growth region, is already showing signs of a shift of commercial support in the region to its competitions.
There is still some distance to go before the start of the new contract in 2020 but the AFC has put in train the criteria for an open tender process using outside consultants with the rights and guidelines for the sale being set by the AFC’s Governance Task Force.
AFC President Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa said: “This is an exciting time for football in Asia. The value of these rights will allow the development of the game on the continent to grow at an unprecedented pace.
“We have placed good governance and integrity at the centre of our Vision and Mission and we will ensure that the process for the sale of the rights adheres to the key principles. We will have a thorough audit of the process – both with internal and external auditors overseeing the sales.
“We need to set an example by being extremely transparent and the Executive Committee must be across every detail as we seek to optimise our commercial value.”
His last comment may be a nod to the extra viligence following the recent arrest of AFC marketing committee chairman Richard Lai from Guam on corruption charges by the US Department of Justice. While Lai had a commercial oversight role within the AFC none of the charges related to AFC commercial business.
Certainly this has not deterred the world’s biggest sports rights agencies manoeurvring for position, with IMG, Lagardere and Dentsu all in evidence working the hotel lobby at the AFC’s congress hotel in Manama.
The rights tender itself is understood to give agencies and other stakeholders a number of different options from all rights guarantees, to rights specific areas and territory specific offer. The AFC says that it has no pre-conceived deal it is looking for at this point.
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1714104086labto1714104086ofdlr1714104086owedi1714104086sni@n1714104086osloh1714104086cin.l1714104086uap1714104086
