July 14 – The on-going dispute between the Spanish football federation (RFEF) and the Mediapro group has hit a new impasse with the media giant accusing the RFEF of ‘covertly’ awarding the federation’s VAR contract.
Mediapro claims that by not issuing a new tender its ‘rights’ have been “seriously damaged”. It points out that it is a “FIFA approved provider which provides VAR services to the UEFA, FIFA, CONMEBOL and CONCACAF competitions as well as to several national leagues.”
Of course issuing a new tender would not necessarily guarantee Mediapro would get the contract and such is the animosity between the two organisations it is hard to see them being able to work together at this point.
Three months ago a Madrid court ordered the RFEF to suspend its tender but reissue a new tender.
The court agreed with Mediapo that in the original tender the RFEF has discriminated against the Spanish company in favour of awarding the contract to British VAR supplier Hawk-eye.
The RFEF acknowledged the judgment saying it would not appeal, but has still not reissued the tender, effectively delaying the process to the degree that the only option for the RFEF is to continue with Hawk-eye.
The RFEF has said it will issue a new tender by the middle of September.
Mediapro said the Spanish federation has “unjustifiably delayed the issue of a new tender in order to extend the contract with the current supplier for another year, thereby once again jeopardizing the interests of GRUP MEDIAPRO. The RFEF has utilized this kind of chicanery to achieved what it intended from the first moment, which was to continue awarding HAWK-EYE the VAR services for the Spanish league.”
“The group will continue to defend its rights as it has been doing to date and fight against these unjustified discriminations by the RFEF which have been sanctioned on multiple occasions by the courts. In the field of VAR services alone, the RFEF was already ordered to pay €2.1 million in March 2022 for abuse of dominant position by excluding GRUP MEDIAPRO from the tender for the award of the service,” said Mediapro.
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