The African Union of Broadcasting (AUB) hereby announces that its negotiation team held a meeting with the officials of Largardere Sports in Paris on September 23, 2016. The meeting, which took place at the AUB’s initiative was aimed at exploring ways and means of setting up of a collaborative partnership with the Paris-based Agency, which is in charge of the commercialisation of the broadcast rights of all events organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF). It is the AUB’s hope that such a partnership will lead to a significant reduction in the rights fees that its 50 member organisations are expected to pay in order to air the matches of African Cup of Nations (AFCON) Gabon 2017 tournament. The partnership would also guarantee greater visibility to all CAF-organised tournaments thanks to an increase of the number of television and radio stations on the continent, which would consequently afford to pay the broadcast rights. The Chief Executive Office (CEO) of the AUB Mr. Gregoire Ndjaka, who led the three/four strong AUB team into the negotiations describes the meeting as highly constructive given that it is a first for the two organisations. On its part, the Largardere team of three appreciated the idea saying that both parties have respective strengthens to bring to the negotiation table that could make the project a win-win. After listening to presentations from each side, the team of 7 proceeded to a frank and rich exchange of ideas on what could be the best model for such a partnership. In spite of the fact that this was the first of such meetings, the dedication and commitment to getting something out of this for both AUB and Lagardere led to an intense four-hour brainstorming session. With clear understanding of where both parties wanted to go, the meeting ended with clearly defined homework and fixed deadlines for both parties and a decision to hold the next meeting in the second week of October. Published on Monday 26th September 2016