How Ligue 1 is fighting the “scourge” of match piracy

They sometimes feel like they're scooping the ocean with a teaspoon. As the 2025-2026 Ligue 1 (L1) season begins on Friday, August 15, with a clash between Rennes and Olympique de Marseille (OM), many players are working behind the scenes to combat what everyone calls a "scourge" : the piracy of live matches.

It is difficult, in fact, to recruit subscribers by the millions or hundreds of thousands on the new platform of the Professional Football League (LFP), Ligue 1+ – which broadcasts eight weekly matches of the championship, the ninth being on BeIN Sports –, when users have easy access to an alternative solution, illegal but free or almost.

"The loss of revenue from piracy for rights holders in the sports sector in France is €300 million per year ," says Martin Ajdari, president of the Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority (Arcom). According to a study by the body, published in mid-May, 18% of French people watched sports illegally in 2024. Of all the disciplines, football is by far the most affected. And this is anything but recent: "It's been a topic since the early 2000s ," observes Douglas Lowenstein, head of legal affairs at LFP Media, the commercial subsidiary of the League. "And it's now an absolute priority."

You have 77.66% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.