Nearly 3,000 Websites Seized or Blocked Over Illegal World Cup Streams

Almost 3,000 websites have been blocked or seized for illegally streaming World Cup matches, the US Department of Justice has said, in one of the largest coordinated anti-piracy actions ever mounted around a sporting event.

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 the US and across South America carried out the action under investigations named "operation offsides" and "operation red card".

Ivan J. Arvelo, director of the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, said unauthorised broadcasting of World Cup matches violated intellectual property rights and "fuels criminal organizations".

The scale has grown rapidly. The DOJ said at the end of last month that it had taken down 400 webpages over illegal World Cup streaming; hundreds more have since been removed or blocked.

"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 assistant attorney general A. Tysen Duva. The enforcement has been largely overseen by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency that includes the NIPRCC.

Illegal streaming of sport typically runs through webpages built specifically for a single event, making them cheap to launch and easy to replace — the reason takedown counts climb into the thousands rather than the dozens. Companies and broadcasters estimate the activity costs them billions of dollars a year, and analysts have found football is pirated at an "industrial scale" because of its global audience.

There is an economic feedback loop behind that. The rising cost of broadcast rights deals has pushed up prices for fans at home, particularly those who must subscribe to several services to follow one team, which drives some viewers towards illegal streams — which in turn is cited to justify still tighter enforcement.

Charles Rivkin, chairman of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, which combats digital piracy and assisted the operation, said the World Cup was the "kind of global live event that piracy networks move quickly to exploit".

The crackdown was supported by FIFA, beIN Media Group, NBC Universal, Ultimate Fighting Championship and Warner Brothers. Much of FIFA's revenue comes from selling broadcasting rights to the global media networks that televise matches. FIFA and the other media companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Colombian Attorney General's Office said it had also made arrests. Four members of a group it referred to as the "cybercriminal group" Los Ciberinfiltrados were detained for allegedly gaining and distributing access to World Cup games illegally.

Reported from the BBC.