La Liga have rolled out an unusual new scheme in order to tackle the rise of pirate streams in football, which will see money offered to the general public to become informants. The Spanish league have been active in taking the legal fight to illegal streaming sites over the last few years.
President Javier Tebas has made it his mission to clamp down upon the rise of pirate streaming of football in recent years, saying that he dedicates 60% of his time to fighting it. Last year Tebas also compared streaming football matches illegally to drug crime and child exploitation.
La Liga roll out new informant scheme
This battle has resulted in the advent of a new scheme to crack down upon venues streaming La Liga games illegally, as per Marca, despite it being free-to-air in China. La Liga have set a complaint line, where people will be able to report bars, hotels or cafes that are illegally streaming games anonymously. La Liga are offering people who do so €50 in exchange for their tip off. Once it has been verified that a venue is illegally streaming games, the money will be deposited in their account.
Pirate streaming on the rise
The reality is that pirate streaming of football is on a steep rise. A report earlier this year claimed that pirate streaming nearly tripled in Spain over the first six months of 2025 compared to 2024. One of the main arguments put to Tebas as an explanation of this shift is the rising cost of TV packages – watching every game of a Champions League team in Spain on TV costs well in excess of €1k. Tebas has claimed that were all of the people using pirate streams to buy the TV packages, then the price of them would come done.
As long as liga keeps rigging games, I see no reason why anyone should pay for watching.
Keep your 50€, I make that in 2 hours.
“One of the main arguments put to Tebas as an explanation of this shift is the rising cost of TV packages – watching every game of a Champions League team in Spain on TV costs well in excess of €1k.
“Tebas has claimed that were all of the people using pirate streams to buy the TV packages, then the price of them would come done.”
First let me say I am 100% against stealing anything from anyone. It simply has been the way I was raised from childhood.
There is a serious disconnect in Spain if a Champion League package cost the common fan €1000. As for the claim that the cost would come down if there were no pirate streams, how does that work?
In comparison, in the United States, there are many NFL games for free on Network TV. A subscription for every game is around $350 per season. Advertising is the main revenue generator for the NFL, but the games are designed to allow many “timeouts” during the game for the advertisers to run their ads. Obviously, that does not work for Spanish/European football.
There has to be technological way to prevent theft of these broadcasts. Paying “snitchers” just seems so dirty and reminiscent of a dictatorial government regime.