The Spanish Liga and the Association for the Protection of Sports Programs, including LFP Media, have written to FIFA to denounce its partnership with ExpressVPN, which has been repeatedly convicted in France for sports piracy.
The irony is total and anger is brewing in the highest levels of European football. While the eyes of the whole world are focused on the pitches of the 2026 World Cup, a legal and commercial battle is being played out behind the scenes. The site The Team explains that the Association for the Protection of Sports Programs (APPS), which brings together French broadcasters such as Canal+, beIN Sports, and LFP Media, and the Spanish La Liga are annoyed by a last-minute sponsorship agreement signed by FIFA with the virtual private network giant ExpressVPN. A decision which led the Spanish sports association to “file a formal complaint” with the governing body of world football.
An official sponsor in the sights of French justice
Announced just before the start of the competition, this partnership allows ExpressVPN to be displayed on advertising panels in World Cup stadiums and to present itself as a defender of cybersecurity to a global audience expected to number several billion viewers. The problem is that in France, the company is seen in a completely different light by sports rights holders.
Since May 2025, French justice has increased its decisions against VPN providers. The Paris judicial court then ordered, at the request of the LFP and Canal+, five VPNs including ExpressVPN to block access to 200 pirate streaming sites broadcasting competitions such as Ligue 1, the Champions League or the Premier League. Other decisions followed in 2026, expanding the scope of the required blockages. However, according to letters sent to Gianni Infantino, President of FIFA, ExpressVPN systematically contests requests for execution of these decisions and does not apply any effective blocking measures on French territory.
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For Javier Tebas, president of the Spanish Liga, seeing FIFA legitimize such an enterprise sends a disastrous message to the entire football ecosystem. In his letter, he denounces an agreement that he considers manifestly incompatible with the principles of protection of audiovisual rights in football, a partnership which would directly compromise the ongoing legal proceedings carried out by La Liga, beIN Sports France and Canal+ against ExpressVPN in several jurisdictions.
A hard blow for the LFP and its Ligue 1+ platform
In France, this alliance arouses maximum irritation, particularly at LFP Media. The commercial company of the Professional Football League has a lot to lose in this affair: it has been broadcasting all the matches of the French championship for a year via its own platform, Ligue 1+, launched last summer after the termination of the contract with DAZN. A still young economic bet, whose profitability depends directly on the number of subscribers, each pirate subscription representing a direct loss of earnings for the French clubs.
Judicial pressure intensifying on all fronts
This climate of tension is not isolated. Arcom also deployed its own real-time blocking device for pirated IPTV streams on June 11, the same day the FIFA-ExpressVPN partnership was announced, as sports piracy represents a loss of revenue estimated at 300 million euros per year in France.
The APPS, through its director Xavier Spender, has therefore officially confronted FIFA with its responsibilities, demanding minimum consistency in the choice of its commercial partners to preserve the value and sustainability of sports competitions. The European leagues are now demanding that the global body pushes ExpressVPN to take the necessary measures to prevent its services from facilitating access to illicit streams.
For its part, FIFA is trying to delay. Questioned on the subject, the organization ensures that it systematically carries out prior verification and an in-depth evaluation before any new commercial partnership, and affirms that it has taken steps so that this sponsorship does not undermine the efforts of the rights holders. Statements which struggle to convince broadcasters, whose annoyance would grow in the face of the absence of a concrete response from the international body.
In the United States, justice also struck hard in mid-June with Operation “Offsides”, seizing nearly 400 pirate streaming sites broadcasting World Cup matches, proof that international legal pressure against sports piracy is intensifying on all fronts during this competition.
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