Spain’s ongoing crackdown on football piracy is once again drawing criticism, as legitimate internet users reported widespread service disruptions caused by aggressive IP blocking measures. The latest incident has put Movistar under scrutiny, after customers experienced access issues even when LaLiga matches weren’t airing.

The anti-piracy strategy, driven by LaLiga and supported by major telcos in the country, involves blocking IP addresses suspected of facilitating illegal streaming. However, the system has repeatedly ensnared legitimate services, leaving both private users and businesses unable to access entirely lawful online platforms.

During the latest round of LaLiga matches, no blocking activity was recorded on March 21st despite key fixtures taking place. Controls were only activated on March 22nd, peaking late in the evening with around 145 IP addresses rendered inaccessible.

Although most operators lifted restrictions shortly after matches concluded, Movistar’s network continued to block dozens of IPs well into the morning of March 23rd. This included addresses associated with major cloud providers such as Cloudflare, AWS and Alibaba Cloud

Given that a single IPv4 address can host thousands of websites, the knock-on effect has been substantial, disrupting access to a wide array of legitimate services.

All major Spanish telecom providers adopted these measures voluntarily after court approval of LaLiga’s anti-piracy initiative. Yet, execution varies significantly. Most operators limit blocking strictly to the periods mandated, restoring normal traffic promptly after matches.

Movistar, by contrast, has faced repeated criticism for applying stricter and longer-lasting restrictions. Until late 2025, monitoring tools consistently showed that customers of Movistar and its subsidiary O2 experienced more prolonged disruptions compared to users of rival networks such as Orange, Vodafone and Digi.

In an update issued roughly 40 minutes after the issue gained visibility, Telefónica lifted all remaining blocks, effectively confirming that the disruption stemmed from a technical error. Nevertheless, for many customers, the damage had already been done, with hours of unnecessary service interruption.

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Categories: Articles, Content, Piracy

Tags: laliga, Movistar, piracy, spain