French pay-television broadcaster Canal Plus has finally agreed to share domestic English Premier League soccer coverage with Altice in a sublicensing agreement for the 2019 to 2022 media rights cycle.

The agreement means that Altice’s RMC Sport channels and over-the-top (OTT) service will be able to continue to show Premier League action, despite having lost the rights at the end of the 2018/19 season.

Canal Plus had acquired the rights to English soccer’s top flight in late 2018 in a deal reportedly worth some US$102.9 million per season.

In January, it was reported that Canal Plus were looking to sell its domestic rights coverage, with Canal Plus chairman and chief executive Maxime Saada telling French publication L’Equipe: “The important thing for me is not to deprive [RMC] of the Premier League.

“We will look at all scenarios and if one of them makes sense, then I don’t doubt that we will have an agreement with Premier League.”

Last month, Altice president Alain Weill said he was confident that this sublicensing arrangement could be reached saying that Altice had “no worries about the fact that we will continue to show the Premier League next season on RMC Sport.”

This deal means that the English Premier League will have been aired on RMC Sport channels for nine consecutive years, following the company’s acquisition of rights in 2016.

Elsewhere, Swiss agency Infront has sealed a three-year deal with the English Premier League to market free-to-air rights across sub-Saharan Africa in over 40 countries from 2019 to 2022.