Spanish soccer’s RFEF governing body has canceled its invitation to tender process for finding a video assistant referee (VAR) services supplier for the next four seasons amid the federation’s ongoing legal dispute with Mediapro, the sports rights and production company.
The RFEF launched the tender process in March for a contract running from 2023-24 through 2026-27, covering both the men’s and women’s professional competitions.
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However, a month later, the process was suspended by the Madrid Commercial Court as a precautionary measure requested by Mediapro due to the pair’s long-running legal battle.
The agency contested that previous tenders of this nature carried out by the RFEF to find a VAR supplier have been anti-competitive, with the federation deliberately excluding Mediapro from consideration.
Now, the RFEF has confirmed the “definitive cancellation” of the tender, with the VAR system in the first and second divisions to be operated by technology company Hawk-Eye until at least the end of the 2023-24 season.
The RFEF said it plans to launch a new invitation to tender for VAR supply rights in September, with the "temporary scope of the contest will be four seasons (2024-25 to 2027-28) with the possibility of extending a more season, prior agreement of the parties."
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By GlobalDataThe federation added that a procedure will be followed to “duly comply” with orders set out by the Madrid Commercial Court as part of its previous ruling on a future tender.
The court agreed with Mediapro, saying that the RFEF’s tender includes “anti-competitive bidding legal grounds, to benefit one competitor and to prejudice Mediapro.”
The court added: “There are indications of evidence to demonstrate an inappropriate weighting of the criteria used, leading to the component of the price of the bid being irrelevant, especially when the weighting is influenced by an inadequate criterion, such as experience.”
It concluded: “The RFEF have been repeatedly incurring in abusive behaviors which have been sanctioned by our courts.”
That ruling came after the RFEF was ordered to pay damages of €2.1 million ($2.4 million) to Mediapro in March 2021 over the award of a contract to provide VAR services for the top two domestic leagues in Spain in 2019.
On that occasion, the Madrid Commercial Court found that the governing body was guilty of an “abuse of a dominant position” when it awarded the contract for VAR services to UK-based Hawk-Eye for four seasons from 2019-20. That will now be extended.
Hawk-Eye won the contract despite Mediapro submitting a more lucrative financial offer, with the RFEF claiming it chose the UK firm due to its experience.
In January last year, meanwhile, a judge ruled that Mediapro was unlawfully excluded from a 2019 RFEF tender process for VAR services across Spain's Copa del Rey knockout competition.
The RFEF was also ordered to pay compensation to the production firm in that case.
Images: Rafa Babot/Getty Images
