Forgive us, Father, for we have sinned. We have all happened, one day, to looking for a link on more or less obscure websites to watch our favorite team’s match in streaming. And we’re not the only ones. According to an Ipsos survey conducted by the LFP last February, 59% of football fans watched Ligue 1 via unofficial means during the 2025-2026 season. It’s a lot. Too much.
Like the Professional Football League, all sports stakeholders, broadcasters and public authorities are mobilized, in line with the proposed law from senators Laurent Lafon (UDI) and Michel Savin (LR) relating to the organization, management and financing of professional sport, to try to put an end to piracy. And the forum organized this Monday morning by the association for the protection of sports programs (APPS) at the Tenniseum de Roland-Garros was in this direction. With one objective: to protect the model of French sport.
Four billion views via piracy during the 2024 Olympics
Streaming, VPN, IPTV, Peer-to-peer… According to Douglas Lowenstein, legal director at LFP Medias, the shortfall would amount to several hundred million euros, while the L1 is the most pirated competition in France, well ahead of the Champions League and the Premier League. “The drop in TV rights resulting from piracy primarily impacts professional football clubs who find themselves obliged to sell players,” he assured. This will harm the attractiveness of the competition in the long term and represents an existential risk for football as a whole. »
During the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France Télévisions identified 2,950 pirate sites, 232,000 live pirate links, for a total of four billion views on different platforms. A huge shortfall in terms of audience and advertising revenue. “On illegal platforms, live sports, streaming and IPTV, we do not have the effective tools in France,” laments David Grégorio, head of the group’s anti-piracy unit. We hope things will change. »
So, how can we combat this phenomenon? The League managed to obtain the first preventive blocks of IPTV services in 2022, the same against VPN services, search engines or alternative domain name systems (DNS) in 2025, but this remains too little in the face of a real industry, sometimes linked to organized crime. The authorities, with Arcom at the helm, are doing their best, despite limited resources.
Time problems to block
Last year, the Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority indicated that it had blocked 15,200 domain names since 2021 and noted a 34% drop in the consumption of illegal content over the same period thanks to a toughening of the fight against piracy. Figures in clear growth, which however clash with the reality on the ground, since the procedures leading to the blockage generally take time.
“After each broadcast, rights holders can transmit the addresses of new sites, new pirate services which have used the rights of their competition,” explains Pauline Combredet-Blassel, deputy general director of Arcom. Reports must be produced to establish that the service is indeed illegal before requesting a blocking. . We are able to complete this procedure in four hours when the emergency requires it. But, in general, it is a procedure that lasts about a week. »
Far, very far, from what La Liga can do in Spain, established as a model in the fight against piracy, thanks to solid resources (12 million euros invested and a team of 25 people dedicated to this fight). “Four years ago, I had no idea what piracy was, today it represents more than half of my working day,” explained Javier Tebas, the president of the Spanish Professional Football League, guest of the forum.
Spain, a model to follow
“In Spain we had magnificent judicial resolutions in December 2024, which allowed us to go directly from La Liga to the attack of piracy, and to allow a blocking, dynamic, during live events. This is what is most effective. In France, it’s different, the blocking is slower, it must go through Arcom first. » According to the Spanish authority, piracy would represent a shortfall of 600 to 700 million euros.
« Three years ago, we had to convince, not the politicians, but the judges and the courts first that there were measures to be taken on intellectual property, with in-depth legal work, continued the leader. We had to persuade them with intellectual and audiovisual property. It was also necessary to convince the major audiovisual players in Spain. Their collaboration is essential. »
Thanks to enormous traceability work, recovered evidence, and location of IP addresses, a blockage can occur in three minutes. During each day of the championship, around 30,000 IP addresses are blocked, of which around a third are IPTV. And there is no question of relaxing.
“The technology used by the pirates is of very high quality,” continues Javier Tebas. They change from one IP to another IP quickly. We use AI to anticipate things. The speed of reaction against these flows is key in the organization and in the fight against piracy. » According to him, since the dynamic blocking system was put in place, the number of illegal content has decreased by 60%.
France has not yet set quantified objectives, but hopes, with the inclusion of the law in the coming months, to return to the “first division in the fight against piracy”, concludes Xavier Spender, president of the APPS. With this law, an offense of piracy would be created and blocking procedures would be simplified. With the hope, at the end of the chain, of revaluing French football at its fair price among broadcasters.
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