Europe’s top football leagues and sports broadcasters are not happy with social media platform X, according to a letter seen by The Associated Press.
The AP reported this week that it had seen a letter written co-signed by various European sports stakeholders and addressed to X CEO, Linda Yaccarino.
Illegal streaming is the sports leagues and broadcasters’ main area of concern. The associated stakeholders do not think X, formerly Twitter, is doing enough to combat illegal streaming.
“X’s approach to taking down unlawful live content notified to them is woefully insufficient and inadequate,” the letter said, according to AP’s report.
“This makes our respective intensive efforts to tackle this problem hugely inefficient. Critically, since you acquired the platform, we have witnessed a demoralising reduction in technical support making it ever more difficult to engage with the platform in any kind of meaningful discussion on this topic.”
AP states the letter has been signed by the English Premier League, Spanish LaLiga, German Bundesliga and Italian Serie A. These are four of the five most valuable and widely viewed domestic football leagues in Europe, in addition to France’s Ligue One.
These leagues also have extensive broadcast partners. DAZN is apparently a signatory to the letter, being the domestic football partner of Seire A in Italy and more recently Ligue One in France.
Sky Sports, one of the principal partners of the Premier League and the main broadcaster of the EFL, as well as covering a range of other sports in the UK and Ireland, has also added its signature to the letter.
Additional signatures come from UEFA and CONMEBOL, beIN – also a domestic broadcaster of French Ligue One – and DirecTV and Movistar Plus+.
Illegal streaming is a big money maker for those involved in it, and a big loss for the leagues and broadcasters.
Law enforcement often take charges around these cases very seriously – last year five men were sentenced in the UK for running a five-year, £7m illegal Premier League streaming operation which amassed over 50,000 subscribers.