Fight illegal streaming and protect grassroots sport

The EPP Group wants to beef up the fight against online piracy of sports events. In today’s parliamentary debate, we will urge the European Commission to come up with a legislative proposal to protect sports events organisers, amateur sports clubs and fans from the harm of a thriving black market bringing millions of Euros to professional pirate companies. Broadcasts reported as illegal shall be removed or disabled within a maximum of 30 minutes. The European Parliament will adopt its position on Tuesday.

“Online piracy of sports events has major consequences, especially for amateur clubs and sports federations which are partly financed by the income from audiovisual broadcasts. For the French football industry, for example, this means a loss of nearly €500 million each year for our amateur clubs. We must stop these illegal activities”, said Geoffroy Didier MEP, EPP Group Deputy Spokesman in the Legal Affairs Committee, who negotiated the parliamentary Report on behalf of the EPP Group.

“Without revenue from successful sports events there are no solidarity payments for grassroots sport, no security in stadiums, no investments in better venues and much less development of young sporting talents. Online piracy threatens the sustainability of the whole sport sector”, added Tomasz Frankowski MEP, who negotiated the topic in Parliament's Culture Committee.

The Report proposes a number of concrete legal and technical solutions. Apart from the removal of illegal content within 30 minutes after the notification from right holders, it also calls for promoting legal sources of sport content and an enforced cooperation between sports organisations, broadcasters, internet intermediaries and national authorities in order to combat piracy effectively.

In 2019, 7.6 million subscriptions were made to illegal broadcasting platforms in the EU. These subscriptions generated around €522 million in illicit revenues and €113.5 million in avoided VAT.