LaLiga president Javier Tebas did not spare the hints as he fired shots of warning to Meta, and other illegal streaming platforms for subtly aiding football piracy.
In a strongly-worded tirade delivered at the Intellectual Property Summit in Miami, the Spanish football chief said the hunt for illegal streams is just like the hunt for cocaine and child sex.
According to him, Meta has aided online streaming platforms, breaching copyright restrictions, and making streaming services available for online communities.
”If you go to Google and type in “I want to buy cocaine” or “child sex” nothing appears. But if you type in “free football” it appears… One is considered a serious crime, but the other is not, and it’s the same thing.’
He continued: ‘On Telegram and Discord there are groups of 50 and 60 thousand people, of all languages, with the ‘links’ to view illegal content.
Tebas also revealed steps have been taken in Spain to clamp down on illegal streams across meta. He added there have been concerted moves by football authorities to ban Meta for illegal streams but the move could not scale through the legal barrier as the judge backed down.
”In Spain they were going to ban Telegram for piracy, in the end, the judge who was willing to do it backed down. They and Discord are giving a lot of information on how you can get this content.
”We will also go after Meta because it is also happening in the WhatsApp communities and they are not collaborating to help clarify it.”
Illegal online streaming services has grown exponentially with the concurrent growth of online communities. Statistics have shown over 30% of football viewers watch matches on illegal streams.
Tebas and Spanish football are not alone in the attempt to clamp down on illegal streaming services. In England, one Steve Mills was jailed for two years and six months for illegally streaming Premier League matches to a closed Facebook group.
