Almost 3,000 websites have been blocked or seized for illegally streaming World Cup matches, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has said, in a crackdown that spanned the Americas and netted arrests in Colombia.
More than 1,000 domains were shut down in the US alone during the tournament, with a similar number blocked in Colombia. Enforcement agencies in America and across South America carried out the action under investigations named "operation offsides" and "operation red card".
“Nearly 3,000 websites were seized or blocked for illegally streaming World Cup matches, the US Department of Justice said.”
Ivan J. Arvelo, director of the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (NIPRCC), said unauthorised broadcasting of World Cup matches violated intellectual property rights and "fuels criminal organizations".
The DOJ said at the end of last month it had taken down 400 webpages over illegal World Cup streaming. Now hundreds more have been taken down or blocked, bringing the total to nearly 3,000.
"The sustained effort to seize more than a thousand domains dedicated to illegally streaming the World Cup confirms the administration's commitment to intellectual property rights and to the success of the 2026 FIFA World Cup," said the DOJ's assistant attorney general A. Tysen Duva.
The enforcement has been largely overseen by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a federal agency that includes the NIPRCC. The crackdown on illegal streaming was also supported by Fifa, which organises the World Cup, beIN Media Group, NBC Universal, Ultimate Fighting Championship, and Warner Brothers, as well as the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), which aims to combat digital piracy.
Charles Rivkin, chairman of ACE, said on Monday that the World Cup was the "kind of global live event that piracy networks move quickly to exploit".
The illegal streaming of sports often happens through webpages or websites created specifically for the event. Companies and broadcasters have estimated the activity costs them billions of dollars a year. Due to its global popularity, football has been found to be pirated at an "industrial scale", according to analysts. The increasing cost of rights deals for matches has resulted in higher prices for fans at home, especially if they choose to pay for multiple services to watch their team play, leading some to turn to illegal streams.
In Colombia, four members of what was referred to as the "cybercriminal group" Los Ciberinfiltrados were arrested for allegedly gaining and distributing access to World Cup games illegally. The Colombian Attorney General's Office said another 830 websites in Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil and the Dominican Republic were also targeted.
Much of Fifa's revenue comes from the sale of broadcasting rights to the various global media networks that want to televise matches. Fifa and the other media entities did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
