Injury limited Morrison to just nine
appearances in his half-season in
Sweden, but he performed well
enough to earn a shot at Premier
League redemption with newly
promoted Sheffield United in the
summer of 2019.
One person with knowledge of the
situation admits Sheffield United “took
a punt” on Morrison, though, and that
he was never an obvious tactical fit.
“Even if he had done well,” they say,
“he’d have been a square peg in a
round hole.”
Midway through the season, unable
to crack Chris Wilder’s line-up,
Morrison was loaned to Middlesbrough
in the Championship. He lacked match
fitness upon his arrival at the Riverside
but was liked by managerJonathan
Woodgate. When he was replaced by
Warnock, though, the new boss felt he
couldn’t invest the time required to get
Morrison up to speed.
With Morrison’s loan agreement not
accounting for a later-than-expected
end to the season due to the
pandemic, a wrangle ensued between
Middlesbrough and Sheffield United;
neither side wanted him.
And so came the move to Den Haag
last summer. With virtually an entire
squad bought and sold ahead of the
season, the Dutch side were always
likely to struggle. The official
announcement of Morrison’s release
insisted club and player parted on
amicable terms. Den Haag had won
just one of their first14 Eredivisie
fixtures, of which Morrison had
featuredinonlyfour.
“He needs to find an environment
where he’s a key player and plays
every week,” says former Ostersunds
manager Ian Burchnall. “Not many
clubs have bought him and said, ‘Right,
we’re going to invest our energy into
him to get out what we can.’”
What Morrison most needs –
patience – is a luxury in football, and
one the clubs willing to roll the dice on
a player like him can ill afford.
Whether the talent he showed as a
teen has been spent, or whether he is
just waiting to find the right
circumstances, Morrison, who turned
28 in February, is likely to remain an
enigma.
Ryan Baldi
I
n May 2018, it was announced
that Mediapro, the Spanish
broadcaster, had acquired
rights to cover the majority of
Ligue1 games between 2020
and 2024 for€1.15 billion a
year. A new company entering
the fray with such financial muscle
came as a shock for French football:
Ligue1 had never been broadcast by
an entirely foreign company since it
firstappearedonTVin1984.
Ahead of the 2020-21 campaign,
Mediapro launched the subscription
channel Telefoot to show games for
€25.90 a month. Many French fans,
who’d been used to watching domestic
football as part of a wider European
package, thought the price was very
hefty to access French football alone.
The first game broadcast was a drab
0-0 draw between Bordeaux and
Nantes, but viewers nonetheless
applauded the quality of Telefoot’s
coverage. It didn’t help. By the end of
November, Telefoot had signed up just
480,000 subscribers-to break even
they needed 3.5 million.
In November, Mediapro failed to pay
Ligue1’s governing body, the Ligue de
Football Professional
(LFP), a€178 million
tranche that was due,
and the ensuing dispute
quickly went to court.
Mediapro argued that
the impact of COVID-19
on professional football,
including the lack of fans in grounds
affecting the TV spectacle, made a
reduction in the price of the deal
justifiable. But the LFP refused to
discount their product and on
December11, the court announced anend to the partnership between the
LFP and Mediapro.
Free to make another deal, the LFP
immediately opened discussions with
Canal+, France’s major satellite
channel. LFP president Vincent
Labrune declared that he wouldn’t
agree to anything less than€800m,
arguing that this would ensure the
league’s inherent value wouldn’t be
irreparably damaged. Canal+ balked at
the idea and threatened to let go of
the rights package they already had
-worth€330m - claiming that under
the circumstances there should be a
new tendering process for all the
packages the LFP had made available.
The channel’s head Maxime Saada
claimed Canal+ had been mistreated
by the LFP for years, and that the
league would be breaking the law if
they didn’t put the rights up for tender.
Canal+ suggested showing the rest
of the season’s games via pay-per-
view, similar to the Premier League at
the end of last year. This idea was
somewhat undermined by the fact that
English fans had hated the concept,
and the idea had been quickly
scrapped. The LFP did not pursue it.Instead, the remaining packages
were put up for bidding, yet this didn’t
provide a solution either. Offers from
Amazon, Eurosport and DAZN were all
rejected by the LFP, while Canal+ did
not even bid - in spite of insisting that
the games be made available.
Once again, the LFP and Canal+
resumed negotiations and, eventually,
a deal was reached. Their original
agreement was reinstated, with the
remaining Ligue1 fixtures purchased
for a reported fee of€35m. If true,
that means the LFP will receive a total
fee of around€670m for the season- less than half of the expected€1.15b.
For now, it is a stop-gap, affording
the LFP time to arrange a new deal for
next season, while the dream they
were sold by Mediapro lies in tatters.
HowardJohnson
Mediapro...The
broadcasters’
agreement with
Ligue1 fell through
in DecemberLigue 1
Broadcasting dispute puts French top flight in
financial jeopardy
PEOPLE AND PLACES IN THE NEWSBy the end of November,
Telefoot had signed up just
480,000 subscribers - to break
even they needed 3.5 million