Since the resumption of the football championship, more and more football fans are watching their favourite teams’ matches on pirate platforms rather than subscribing to legal offers that are often boycotted and deemed overpriced. A massive piracy that is forcing the brand new TV broadcaster of the French championship, the British DAZN, to slash the prices of its subscriptions starting Tuesday, September 10… but only for two weeks.
However, these pirate access providers are taking advantage of the current market crisis. They can be contacted via Telegram, like the one who calls himself “Descartes”. This 23-year-old Frenchman explains that he lives in a country neighboring France, but plans to move out of Europe soon.for his own safety“. He sells “services“on Telegram since he was a minor,” he says.
With video and screenshots to support his claim, Descartes proves that, since this summer, he has been working mainly on match nights, with a team of 20 retailers to sell IPTV subscriptions on Telegram via servers based abroad. Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) is an application and a code which, most often without the help of an electronic box, allow for less than 90 euros per year, sometimes much less, access to hundreds of channels from all countries, including all French, European and even international football. An illegal business that brings in a lot of money for pirate suppliers, explains Descartes, who is taking full advantage of the current crisis.
“On match days, I can get around 700, 800 euros per day in earnings in my pocket.”
Descartes, a pirate who sells IPTV subscriptionsto franceinfo
“During the weekdays when there are not too many matches, we can get around 400 to 500 euros, assures Descartes. I would say 90% of the customers are new people. The majority are for football. Right now, I would say that in two weeks, I have maybe 450 customers. It’s huge the number of messages you can receive per day.”
Faced with the anti-piracy fight, Descartes says he is safe : “Personally, the servers, I know they are in France, so they will have difficulty stopping them. When the authorities stop a server, another one will start. Resellers like us, there are so many of them, there are thousands of them, on Snapchat or Telegram. We would have to do a big clean-up to stop them. I don’t think it will ever stop.”
Most of the hacking offer for Ligue 1 and 2, in IPTV or streaming, is on the encrypted messaging service Telegram, but not only that, Signal, Snap and, more recently, TikTok are also concerned. For the first match of the season, Le Havre-PSG, it is estimated that more than 200,000 people were connected on Telegram. On the third day, most of the main Championship matches were still accessible. More than 50,000 fans watched Lille-PSG.
The Odoxa polling institute recently looked into the subject based on a sample of 1,000 French people, the pollster estimates that around 2.5 million French people follow football illegally. The cause: the quality of the offer and especially the prices practiced so far by DAZN, say 60% of those questioned, while only 37% consider the practice reprehensible.
Since its creation, Arcom has coordinated the fight against piracy of sports content on the Internet. It uses prevention by broadcasting TV spots on major French channels.Nobody believes that legal supply is the pillar of sport today“, says this spot, seeking to make the football fan responsible.
But the crux of the war against massive piracy of sports on the internet remains the repression of illegal networks and a targeted blocking policy of clandestine sites. Since 2022, ARCOM, the Professional Football League (LFP), the Association for the Protection of Sports Programs and the French Telecoms Federation (which brings together the main internet service providers such as Orange, Bouygues or SFR), have been trying to stem the piracy of football match broadcasts while 8.5 million internet users (16%) continue to resort to piracy in 2023.
Since the resumption of the championship this summer, and a decision by the Paris Judicial Court on August 2 in favor of the LFP, ARCOM has coordinated several raids against these pirate platforms. The audiovisual policeman estimates that 174 sites illegally streaming Ligue 1 matches, including mirror sites, have been blocked since last August.
“DNS” blocks, as the technicians say, which take place just before the broadcast of the matches. “When the matches are broadcast, the rights holders, for example the Football League, will report them, explains Pauline Combredet-Blassel, the deputy general director of ARCOM, where half a dozen agents are mobilized. Once these reports have been received, we will process all of these services and each time it turns out that they are indeed hacking the sports competition, we will request that they be blocked just before the next match, in particular to prevent them from replicating again.”
Between 2022 and 2023, ARCOM estimates that nearly 3,370 domain names were blocked, mainly live-streaming sites and IPTV services broadcasting football. Over the same period, piracy fell by around 30% according to ARCOM estimates. These figures contrast with the trend observed in recent months on specialized networks.
Faced with piracy, and even calls for a boycott from some supporters, the British streaming platform DAZN has just reacted. After having already paid 400 million euros for the broadcast of eight L1 matches live, it has decided to sell off its various offers with or without commitment from today until September 22. Can this effort prevent an industrial accident? DAZN, via the Havas communications agency, did not respond to franceinfo’s various questions. As for the rights holders, the Professional Football League, a general press release sent to franceinfo recalls its tireless fight against the piracy of sports content.
Among the historical players in the broadcasting of Ligue 1 in France, a senior executive nevertheless agrees to speak to us, but he wants to remain anonymous. His reading of the market is rather pessimistic.This hacking will ultimately kill an entire ecosystem,” he explains.Clubs are too dependent on TV rights, on average between 60 and 70%, when it is much less in rugby. The presidents are unhappy because the League promised them a lot of money and they feel that they have been sold a smokescreen, continues this framework. As for the football fan and consumer, for the fourth time in six years, the operator is changing despite having been promised the opposite. Result: all those who want to see their club at all costs and need this weekly soap opera to which they have been accustomed for decades, will continue to turn to workarounds, such as piracy, in my opinion.
Still according to this senior executive, “Even people who are moderately agile from a digital point of view have the keys to be able to obtain the broadcast of matches on foreign sites. The supporter does not care about the quality of the commentary. He is ready to follow the match without the sound. But above all, what risks happening is a form of general disaffection for Ligue 1 and a growing interest in European matches,” he tackles.
“L1 is clearly not in the top 5 of European championships. It has perhaps lived beyond its means.”
A senior executive, a historic player in the broadcasting of Ligue 1to franceinfo
And to conclude: “It’s a bit like La Fontaine’s fable ‘The Frog and the Ox’. And today, the league is closer to the frog than to the ox.”
According to him, the commercial objective communicated by DAZN (1 to 1.5 million subscribers by February) is unattainable. And for good reason, according to his information, the last broadcaster of Ligue 1, Amazon Prime, has never exceeded one million subscribers, but was rather around 600,000 subscribers with commitment.
Last important point: blocking access to streaming sites that broadcast football costs money. The French Telecoms Federation does not wish to specify this confidential figure. But this bill, the federation reminds us, is partly borne by the rights holders. It is indeed the Professional Football League, a public service delegation, which pays the hefty bill for the fight against piracy.We are not players in the sports rights market, explains Romain Bonenfant, general director of the French Telecommunications Federation. It is not up to us to judge, but we can clearly see that the development of a relevant legal offer, at the right price, which meets consumers’ expectations, is obviously an essential element in the fight against piracy. The fight against piracy obviously costs us money in investment. We need to know who is paying for this fight and everyone must take their responsibilities.”