All commercial contracts that a club enters into for the exploitation of media rights on club-branded content services and/or through club media partners must incorporate these Club Media Rights Guidelines so that they are binding on the clubs, the third-party digital service operators and the club media partners. Clubs are responsible and liable to UEFA for the compliance of the club media partners and third-party digital service operators with these Club Media Rights Guidelines (subject always to the provisions of Annex G.5.3 below).
Without prejudice to Paragraph 70.05, the maximum duration of such commercial contracts is three competition seasons (2024/25, 2025/26 and 2026/27), ending, in any case, on 30 June 2027 at the latest.
Clubs may exploit rights in perpetuity regardless of whether they are participating in the current UEFA Champions League season, subject to the conditions imposed by the Club Media Rights Guidelines in force at the time of the rights being exploited. If a club has not participated in the UEFA Champions League since the 2003/04 season (inclusive), it must execute an agreement, to be provided by UEFA at the club’s request, undertaking to comply with the relevant version of the Club Media Rights Guidelines.
Clubs shall not create a programme or a product (including any pre-match or post-match programme and/or product) which competes with any UEFA/competition programme and/or any product centrally marketed by UEFA. To this end, clubs shall not bundle rights with those of any other club participating in the UEFA Champions League and/or the play-offs, including in relation to their club-branded content services, nor shall they allow their club media partners or third-party digital service operators to bundle rights. For example, clubs and club media partners shall not create a live quasi-video service through the combination of audio/radio commentary and sequential still photographs/images. Furthermore, the rights exploited by a club, including the relevant programmes/products, may not feature content of UEFA Champions League and/or play-off matches in which the club is not participating.
Any and all exploitation of rights by clubs on club-branded content services and/or via club media partners must be club-branded (in order not to create a programme/product which competes with a UEFA/competition programme/product centrally marketed by UEFA). At the same time, UEFA will not exploit rights dedicated to one single club (in order not to create a programme or product which competes with any club programme or product).
No club, club media partner, and/or third-party digital service operator may use the competition logo, name, music, typography or trophy or any other competition designs, including images of the official ball, or graphics. UEFA and clubs acknowledge that in practice the following limited exceptions are permitted to the above rule: (i) any on-screen graphics and on-screen credits included by the host broadcaster in the raw feed (however, no use of the competition opening and closing sequences, match bumpers or break bumpers is permitted); (ii) use of the name "UEFA Champions League" in a standard typography (UEFA Champions League typography is specifically excluded) in a descriptive context to inform the consumer of the inclusion of competition content or in a purely editorial/descriptive context; (iii) use of the trophy image within still images of the winning club; and (iv) any use of competition branded items (such as microphone windshields) if specifically directed by UEFA.
No club, club media partner and/or third-party digital service operator may present itself as a partner of the competition or otherwise directly and/or indirectly associate itself (or the platforms on which it exploits the rights) and/or any third party, products or services with the competition.
If a club exploits media rights, via its club-branded content services or via club media partners, it shall ensure that there is no interference with the raw feed, for example by adding, removing, editing or modifying any graphics, on-screen credits or other branding element. Notwithstanding the foregoing, clubs and/or club media partners (for the avoidance of doubt, expressly excluding any third-party digital service operator) may add:
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their normal corporate/channel identification logo provided the logo is placed in a corner of the screen in such a way that it does not disrupt any graphic or other information included in the raw feed; and
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minor timing and/or score graphics and/or its normal captions for the commentator provided these are placed in such a way that they do not disrupt any graphic or other information included in raw feed.
Clubs are liable to UEFA for the protection of any and all broadcasts and transmissions as envisaged under these Club Media Rights Guidelines featuring audio, visual and/or audio-visual material of UEFA Champions League and/or play-off matches against piracy or unauthorised re-transmission/use thereof and must therefore take all reasonable steps (and ensure that club media partners and third-party digital service operators take all reasonable steps), to the extent permitted by applicable laws, to prevent the unauthorised use, re-transmission or re-distribution of such broadcast and transmissions in full or in part. In addition to any sanctions available to UEFA under Annex G.1.4 of these Club Media Rights Guidelines, any club failing to protect such material, or failing to ensure that its club media partners and third-party digital service operators protect such material, may be required by UEFA to immediately remove the content from the relevant programme or product and/or the relevant club-branded content service.
All technical transmissions (to and between transmission facilities, including uplinks and downlinks) from clubs, and/or club media partners must be encrypted on a high-level conditional-access basis.
In order to enable UEFA to have an overview of the exploitation of UEFA Champions League and/or play-off media rights by all participating clubs, any club which exploits or intends to exploit any media rights must provide, at UEFA’s request, reasonable information to UEFA relating to such exploitation. UEFA will provide, at the club’s request, reasonable information to the club relating to the UEFA media partners’ exploitation.
In recognition of the convergence of technologies over which audiovisual content may be distributed, a platform-neutral approach has been implemented by UEFA. In addition, media rights available to clubs are characterised using a time-window approach with the availability of rights during different time windows being dependent on both the type of content and the platform of exploitation. If the kick-off time of any of the matches changes, then the relevant embargo periods shall be adapted accordingly, unless instructed otherwise by UEFA.
The clubs’ coverage of activities open to the general media (i.e. the open part of training sessions, press conferences and the mixed zone) may be exploited by the clubs at their discretion.