Canal Plus, the international pay-TV heavyweight, will launch dedicated channels in Belgium after securing exclusive domestic rights to European soccer’s UEFA club competitions for the next four-year cycle, while extending coverage in a trio of other markets.
The broadcaster has secured full rights to the elite UEFA Champions League (UCL), secondary Europa League, and third-tier Conference League in the territory from the 2027-2028 season through to 2030-2031.
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In addition, Canal Plus has renewed its deal to show the competitions in Poland, Austria, and Switzerland.
The major broadcaster has retained full and exclusive rights to the UCL in Poland, while it will continue to show one match per day from the top-tier competition and the Europa League or Conference League in French and on a co-exclusive basis in Switzerland.
The agreement in Austria will see Canal Plus continue to show the Europa League and Conference League. Polsat, the Polish terrestrial and satellite broadcaster, has kept rights to the competitions domestically.
International sports streaming service DAZN is understood to have acquired UCL rights in Austria for the next cycle, meanwhile.
The new agreements add to Canal Plus’ recent extension – unveiled late last year – in France for exclusive rights to the three competitions until 2031.
The key new development for Canal Plus will be the addition of Belgium to its portfolio. The broadcaster has a long-standing presence in the market but, unlike its other territories, does not currently operate a Canal Plus channel.
The group operates through its subsidiaries, Télésat (primarily French-speaking) and TV Vlaanderen (Flanders region), both of which are part of the M7 Group, acquired by Canal Plus in 2019.
The historic Canal Plus Belgium service was rebranded as BeTV in 2004 after parent company Vivendi sold the arm.
While Canal Plus has nowannounced full and exclusive rights to the UEFA club competitions in Belgium, widespread reports in the Belgian media earlier this week had suggested instead that the Disney+ service had secured rights in the market.
In any case, Canal Plus and/or Disney+ will have to provide free-to-air (FTA) coverage for any home games of Belgian sides in the competitions, as these fixtures are listed as protected events under Belgian legislation, meaning they must be covered FTA domestically.
Two Belgian teams, Club Brugge and Union Saint-Gilloise, competed in the 2025-26 UCL season, with Club Brugge making it out of the initial group stage before losing over two legs to Spain’s Atletico Madrid in the play-off round.
The ongoing 2025-26 UCL is being aired in Belgium by a combination of VTM (Dutch-language FTA), RTL (French-language FTA), as well as the Telenet and Proximus telecoms firms – both on a pay-TV basis.
The Europa League and Conference League, meanwhile, are covered by VRT and RTBF (both FTA), as well as Telenet on an exclusive Dutch-language basis, and pay-TV's BeTV.
UEFA began its tender process for rights in several European, Central American, and South American markets in early March, with a deadline of April 21 set for submissions, following which a rights auction has taken place.
The process is being managed by sports agency Relevent Football Partners and UC3, the joint venture between UEFA and the European Club Association (ECA) that controls the marketing, sales, and delivery of commercial rights for the club competitions.
The territories in the tender included Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Central America, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Republic of Ireland, Romania, Slovakia, South America (excepting Brazil), Sweden, and Switzerland.
According to The Guardian, Disney has been named as the preferred bidder in several European countries, one of which is understood to be Sweden, in the auction that concluded this week.
This means that Viaplay will lose rights to the UCL in Sweden, but the Nordic streaming service has today announced an extension in Denmark, where it will continue to show UEFA’s premier competition exclusively.
Viaplay has shown all matches from the UCL since the tournament began in 1992.
The platform has also retained rights to the Europa League and Conference League in Norway and Finland. Norwegian side Bodo-Glimt sensationally made the semi-finals of the Europa League last season, and indeed progressed to the knockout stages of this season's UCL.
Rights to UEFA competitions were already allocated in the 'Big Five' European markets of the UK, Spain, Italy, Germany, and France late last year.
Those were the first tender processes to be managed by Relevent, which replaced UEFA’s longstanding sales partner Team Marketing in that position in late 2024.
Aside from the key quintet of European markets listed above, UEFA and Relevent have also selected one or more preferred bidders in Albania, Kosovo, and Japan, as well as for in-ship and in-flight rights (those rights have been held since the category was brought in by the Sport24 service).
