Spanish Congress supports La Liga’s anti-piracy strategy
October 23, 2025
By Colin Mann
Spain’s Committee on Economic Affairs, Trade and Digital Transformation of the Spanish Congress of Deputies has held a debate and vote on a Non-Legislative Proposal (PNL) concerning dynamic IP address blocking in the context of the fight against audiovisual fraud. As a result of the vote, the PNL in question was not approved, thereby supporting La Liga’s anti-piracy strategy and the use of dynamic IP blocks where illegal broadcasts are detected.
La Liga welcomes the support this vote represents but also views with concern the limited information presented in the PNL, which fails to address both the critical impact of audiovisual fraud on the country’s social and economic infrastructure and the origin of this issue, including the actors who profit from this illegal business. In response, La Liga considers it appropriate to provide the following information to the public conversation:
Dynamic, targeted and temporary blocking
Contrary to what was suggested in the PNL, the blocking of IP addresses carried out by various Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in collaboration with La Liga is proportional, targeted, and time-limited, being enforced only during matches. It is also important to note that these measures are always carried out following verification and documentation of illegal broadcasts of La Liga content, in strict compliance with the relevant court order.
La Liga reminds that these actions are supported by the court ruling issued on 18 December 2024 and ratified in March 2024, by the Commercial Court No. 6 of Barcelona.
To date, La Liga has not received any legal complaints related to dynamic IP blocking. Furthermore, its operational teams have emergency protocols, security measures, and impact assessment tools, including real-time traffic analysis.
The urgent need for a collaboration protocol with tech companies
La Liga welcomes as a positive contribution to the public debate the PNL’s call for a collaboration protocol between audiovisual rights holders and the tech companies hosting pirated content. For several months, La Liga has been building a technological ecosystem of collaborators with whom it works to prevent dynamic IP blocking from affecting third parties unrelated to piracy.
La Liga currently works with companies such as CDN77, Akamai Technologies, Twitch, Vercel, Scaleway, Gcore, among others. This real-time collaboration during La Liga matches allows the identification and quick deactivation of illegal streams, avoiding the need to request ISPs to block IP addresses.
Thanks to this collaboration—and global efforts with other competitions—La Liga registered a 60 per cent decrease in piracy during the 2024/2025 season, a clear sign of the effectiveness of its fight against this illegal practice. Therefore, the organisation supports the creation of a national-level protocol that can deactivate pirate activity in real time and increase effectiveness.
The lack of collaboration from Cloudflare
La Liga highlights that as of May 2025, 38 per cent of La Liga piracy was distributed through Cloudflare’s infrastructure. The tech company is fully aware of the activity occurring on its infrastructure due to the numerous reports and legal notices sent by La Liga in recent months. However, Cloudflare continues to profit economically, acts wilfully, refuses to cooperate, and allows audiovisual fraud to persist using its technology.
Indeed, La Liga has established that before requesting ISP blocking, a notice is sent to tech intermediaries once illicit content is verified. According to a Grant Thornton study, the effectiveness of these notifications is very limited, only 11 per cent of notifications led to the suspension of illegal broadcasts.
In addition to this lack of cooperation, Cloudflare deliberately uses legitimate third-party websites as a digital shield, causing some of its clients to share IP addresses with pirate websites.
Towards greater collaboration in combating audiovisual fraud
La Liga reaffirms its commitment to the fight against piracy—a plague that causes €600 million–€700 million in annual losses to professional clubs and the wider sports industry, with negative consequences for the public interest (CSD contributions, RFEF, grassroots football, women’s football, tax revenue loss, etc.).
La Liga welcomes the outcome of the PNL vote and offers its cooperation to authorities to help create a real-time, effective collaboration protocol with tech companies. Such a protocol would protect the assets of the sports and audiovisual industries and help move towards genuine, effective cooperation in combating this issue.