Gol TV and CNT Contract in Doubt

The company Gol TV has not provided financial guarantees to the Ecuafútbol and CNT has not yet signed the agreement reached with Paco Casal's company. This was revealed on Thursday by the president of Manta FC, Jaime Estrada Bonilla, in an interview for the Citynoticias program on Radio City (89.3 FM Guayaquil).

The leader from Manabita indicated that the clubs of the Serie B of national soccer will demand explanations from the FEF. They have already contacted cable operators who offer more money than Gol TV for television rights and want to know why it was rejected.

"The 24 clubs, in the January Congress, gave their support to the management carried out by the FEF regarding the signing of the contract (with Gol TV) because there was obviously an improvement in income, but we were also clear in the sense that we did not know how the contract had been given and logically the clubs are not responsible for the terms that President (Carlos) Villacís explained in the Congress that there were terms of confidentiality in the contract that obviously it was indicated at that Congress that the clubs had access to know the details of the contract, but logically within the framework of confidentiality," Manta FC's president mentioned.

The Mantense executive emphasized: "We are very concerned about issues such as the FEF lawyer (Jorge Chang) indicating that the contract (with Gol TV) is in force, and on the other hand the judge requests or orders that a new process is carried out. The judge, I understand, declared the contract null and void because if he does not declare it null and void, how does he dispose for a new process to take place?"

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"We only found out now that this contract (with Gol TV) was located in November 2016 and especially that a guarantee has not been presented; a guarantee that is precisely one of the requirements so that what happened with the state channels is not repeated, which still owe a large amount to the FEF in relation to the previous contract," emphasized Estrada.

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"Everything indicates that this contract is in serious trouble," alerted the leader of the Manabita club.

Regarding the $432 million proposal made by a group of companies in exchange for broadcasting rights, an offer higher than that made by Gol TV, Estrada said: "There are proposals from other international operators with higher values, but I believe that before analyzing this issue, the club leaders must be clear on what is the situation of the contract that was signed: is it in force or not? We have many doubts and in this last meeting of the Expanded Committee, lawyer Chang (legal advisor of the FEF), personally and to many leaders who were present, left us with many doubts about the real situation... We now know that CNT has not signed the contract with Gol TV; so there are many unknowns."

In the interview for City Noticias, Estrada Bonilla acknowledged that Manta FC has already received "like all 24 clubs" the advance payment of $6,600,000 provided by Gol TV. This happened in the first half of January. (D)