France’s digital regulator has said it was blocking thousands of illegal streaming services broadcasting French professional football league games.
“Between January and August, 1,922 illegal services were blocked at Arcom’s [the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication] request, exceeding the figures for 2023,” the regulator said in a September 25 statement.
The fight against online piracy in French sporting events has been at the centre of attention since the English broadcasting streaming platform DAZN brought broadcasting rights for the French professional football league for €400 million.
Vincent Labrune, the French football league’s president, has said tackling piracy is his “absolute priority,” linking it to “stealing an old lady’s handbag in a market.”
In August, the daily newspaper Le Parisien reported that more than 200,000 people watched the first game of the season on the encrypted messaging app Telegram.
Brussels Signal has found that accessing Telegram channels broadcasting the league remains relatively easy, with these channels often promoting themselves on platforms like X.
As well as on Telegram, illegal broadcasting of live sporting events is widespread over the Internet through television over broadband (internet protocol television, or IPTV) and illegal streaming websites.
The regulator has been increasing its efforts at blocking illegal streaming sites, working with internet providers who restrict access to the sites.
French football fans, for their part, say have been resorting to piracy in protest at the British streaming platforms DAZN’s “high prices” to watch football matches.
In an attempt to curb illegal streaming, DAZN launched a promotion from September 10 to 22, lowering the price of its annual subscription from €29.99 to €19.99 per month.
The promotion has now been extended until the end of September.
Despite the offers and the crackdown, piracy continues. More than 80,000 people watched Olympique de Marseille versus Olympique Lyonnais on Telegram on September 22.
Brice Daumin, CEO of DAZN France, has compared piracy in French football to “theft”.
“Piracy is theft. Behind it, there are criminal and mafia organisations. It’s a whole ecosystem that’s being damaged. It’s not just DAZN’s problem. It’s the problem of all rights holders and content distributors,” he said.
“DAZN is no more expensive than anything that has existed in the past,” he claimed.
