“The players on these platforms are real mafia groups,” says the Association for the Protection of Sports Programs.

The first day of Ligue 1 matches were broadcast on illegal platforms. Xavier Spender, president of the Association for the Protection of Sports Programs (APPS), condemns this phenomenon.

This is a practice that is gaining ground. Several hundred thousand people connected to watch the start of the new Ligue 1 season from August 17 to 19, to the detriment of the British platform DAZN. Many football fans used the Telegram application, or even the IPTV system, illegal solutions that allow you to avoid paying a subscription to the broadcasters of the French championship. Xavier Spender, president of the Association for the Protection of Sports Programs (APPS), is concerned about this practice.

What impact does the broadcasting of sporting events, including Ligue 1, have on IPTV and Telegram platforms?

Xavier Spender, President of the Association for the Protection of Sports Programs (APPS): What you have to keep in mind is that today the players on these platforms are real mafia groups. They make a significant profit from this activity of pirating content, whether it is sports content or other types. It can be radio podcasts, films, television shows. Today, all media and content are subject to piracy.

Sport, of course, is particularly targeted by pirates and in particular because it has a specificity which is that of live. It is more difficult to combat. Our objective is to succeed in stopping these illegal broadcasts as quickly as possible, so reactivity is an important element. Which means that in the field of sport, it requires very hard work on the part of rights holders and broadcasters to cut these illegal flows.

The Telegram app has been in the news a lot, with the illegal broadcasting of many Ligue 1 matches last weekend. How can this be stopped?

Telegram is not very responsive when asked to cut off streams, that’s clear. Since this year, there has been a European regulation that has been put in place for digital platforms. If the latter are not very cooperative with the regulations in force, they will be prosecuted locally in France, but also at the European level to force them to apply the regulations in force.

But concretely, what is the solution to counter Telegram and IPTV, which are taking more and more market share?

For IPTV – between 2 and 2.5 million users in France – rights holders and broadcasters regularly fight, with their service providers, the IPTV platforms that broadcast sports broadcasts. It should be noted that nearly 30% of users of these platforms are currently subject to operational blockages of flows. [Dans une ordonnance rendue le 2 août 2024, le président du Tribunal judiciaire de Paris a ordonné le blocage par les fournisseurs d’accès à internet français de l’accès à des sites de streaming en direct et à des services IPTV majeurs diffusant sans autorisation les championnats de Ligue 1 McDonald’s et de Ligue 2 BKT.]

“In this game of cat and mouse, we have the means at our disposal to be able to block or combat the actors who set up these systems. These means are increasingly numerous and operators and broadcasters are succeeding. We can cut off streams, we can prohibit access to platform services.”

Xavier Spender, President of the Association for the Protection of Sports Programs

to franceinfo

We can also directly attack the streaming servers of these actors. This is part of all these tools that are now available to rights holders to try to protect what makes up the economic model of sport in France.

We must not forget that the distribution of content, the economic model of the sale of rights is today one of the main ways of financing the entire sports sector, from amateur clubs to professional clubs. And this, whatever the sports. So attacking the economic model of sport today is attacking the entire sports sector on the national territory.