LALIGA has called on the European Commission to move from non-binding guidance to hard law on tackling live sports piracy, after a new monitoring report from the European Union Intellectual Property Office EUIPO found the EU’s 2023 Recommendation has failed to stem illicit streaming.
According to the league, the EUIPO’s assessment confirms that online audiovisual fraud continues to grow across the EU, particularly during peak sports periods, and that voluntary measures and private enforcement have been outpaced by increasingly sophisticated pirate networks. LALIGA argues this shows the need for a common, binding legislative framework for all Member States.
A key structural problem highlighted in the report is the limited cooperation from technology intermediaries – including hosting providers, CDNs, proxies and cloud services – when they receive notices about illegal content during live events. These players are described as “digital shields” that can mask the source of illegal streams and undermine blocking orders. LALIGA has repeatedly criticised some intermediaries, notably Cloudflare, and has raised the issue directly with the Commission.
The Commission’s own findings also note that reported cases of legitimate content being wrongly blocked are minimal compared with the total number of dynamic blocking actions taken since the Recommendation was issued. It concludes that existing systems already include sufficient safeguards, effectively endorsing the dynamic blocking strategies used by LALIGA and other rightsholders.
However, the application of dynamic court-ordered blocking still varies widely across the EU. Some Member States have mature systems in place, while others lack equivalent tools, creating what LALIGA describes as safe havens for pirates. In response, the league and 36 other sports and audiovisual organisations have written to the Commission urging binding rules, including clear takedown deadlines for pirated live streams and mandatory compliance for all intermediaries, from hosters and CDNs to reverse proxies, alternative DNS providers and VPNs.
LALIGA says its current anti-piracy strategy helped cut the rate of piracy consumption in Spain by 60% in the 2024/25 season, backed by a series of court rulings. Even so, it estimates audiovisual piracy still causes annual losses of €600–700 million to professional clubs and the wider sports industry in Spain, with knock-on effects for public-interest areas such as grassroots and women’s football and tax revenues.
The league says it is ready to continue working with EU institutions and industry stakeholders on real-time, cross-border enforcement, and expects new European legislation to give Member States a unified framework for action against live sports piracy.
