La Liga has taken its war on VPNs to the 2026 FIFA World Cup, writing a strongly worded letter to FIFA.
La Liga and LFP Media, the commercial and broadcasting arm of the Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP), have hit out at FIFA over its partnership with ExpressVPN for the 2026 World Cup.
FIFA announced the deal with the cybersecurity company on 11 June, ahead of this summer’s tournament across the US, Canada and Mexico. As part of the partnership, ExpressVPN’s logo features on pitchside LED boards and the company is running ticket sweepstakes for fans to attend the tournament.
VPNs have a lot of legitimate uses, but under La Liga President Javier Tebas, the Spanish league has targeted the technology due to its role in football piracy. Tebas believes that FIFA should not be giving it a platform.
In a letter sent to FIFA President Gianni Infantino, Tebas described the agreement as “manifestly incompatible with the principles of protecting football’s audiovisual rights”.
“The fact that FIFA is entering into a partnership with a company whose service actively facilitates the piracy of sports content sends a disastrous message to the entire football ecosystem,” Tebas wrote.
The Association for the Protection of Sports Programmes (APPS), which represents French broadcasters such as beIN Sports France and Canal+, also raised concerns, as did LFP Media.
APPS claimed that ExpressVPN has failed to implement measures required by French courts to block access to illegal streaming services and said that FIFA’s commercial partnerships should align with efforts to protect the sustainability of sports rights.
FIFA defended the agreement, stating that it carries out “a thorough vetting and assessment process” before entering into commercial deals and that it had “carefully reviewed the potential implications of this sponsorship” before introducing measures to ensure the partnership does not undermine rights holders.
La Liga’s battle against piracy
Sports leagues across the world have all embarked on fights against piracy, but few have made it as much of a priority as La Liga.
The league has invested a lot in tackling illegal streaming, viewing piracy as one of the biggest threats to the value of football broadcasting rights.
To support this effort, the league built a dedicated anti-piracy department focused on technology, legal action and monitoring, which Tebas previously likened to NASA Headquarters.
Earlier this year, La Liga welcomed court decisions in Spain that targeted VPN providers NordVPN and ProtonVPN, which required the companies to block access from Spain to specific IP addresses linked to illegal streaming activity.
However, VPN providers have pushed back, arguing that their services are used for a range of legitimate purposes, including improving online privacy, securing remote working and protecting users from cyber threats.
Speaking to Insider Sport in February, NordVPN argued that blocking websites doesn’t remove illegal content or reduce the incentives.
La Liga’s enforcement also attracted criticism due to unintended consequences. Earlier this year, a number of legitimate websites became inaccessible in Spain after IP addresses were blocked during anti-piracy operations.
One of those affected was website owner Carles Enric, who said that the league informed him that his site was hosted on an IP address which violated the league’s intellectual property rights before advising him to contact Cloudflare to resolve the issue.
After approaching Vodafone, Enric published the operator’s response on X.
“Good afternoon, currently there is no effective, guaranteed or mandatory mechanism to prevent ‘collateral damage’ nor to inform users of the real reason for the block,” Vodafone said.
The operator added that it was complying with a ruling from Commercial Court No. 6 of Barcelona authorising dynamic blocking until 2027, with IP lists updated in real time during matches, meaning legitimate websites can also be caught up in the process.
