La Liga website blocks hit thousands of Spanish shops, no one takes blame

La Liga blocks: thousands of businesses hurt and Spain's Congress stays silent

Have PP and Vox really prioritised La Liga's economic damage over that suffered by tens of thousands of businesses with every internet outage? The question hangs over the economic debate ever since the blocking of match broadcasts started taking down websites with nothing to do with football. A court in Catalonia backed the mechanism, but third parties are footing the bill.

Using a sledgehammer to sustancia ilegal a nut

The mechanics are well known: during matches, La Liga, led by Javier Tebas, asks telecom operators, from Movistar to Orange, to block the IP addresses from which pirate signals are broadcast. The problem is the targeting is sloppy. Entire IP ranges are blocked and, in the process, content delivery systems like Cloudflare go down — according to estimates circulating in technical analysis, Cloudflare handles half of the world's internet traffic. Shop websites, payment gateways and cloud services become temporarily inaccessible. This is no minor side effect: it is a business shutting down in the middle of the working day.

The political fight: nobody wants an own goal

There is no agreement on political responsibility, and the accusations fly. Some argue that PP, Vox and Junts voted against a legal reform that would have limited these blocks, and that right-wing parties stay quiet out of affinity with the owners of the football business. The answer comes swiftly: PSOE is in government and has the tools to change the law but doesn't; a judge orders the blocks, so blaming the opposition is an exercise in cynicism. In between, a more sceptical current points out that the real problem is not piracy but a model that spends tens of millions on signings while asking fans for 100 euros a month.

Football, VPNs and the commerce that pays the price

The debate over VPNs adds fuel to the fire. Anyone who wants to watch pirated football will keep doing so from abroad or with a routing tool; blocking doesn't stop them, it only inconveniences everyone else. The comparison with China looms over the analysis: there, blocking protects a domestic tech industry; here, it shields a private business with inflated costs. Meanwhile, affected businesses pile up losses and responsibility dissolves among judges, operators and political parties.

And while Spain's Congress does nothing, football remains free to watch for anyone who knows how to use a VPN. Those who don't pay for a ticket. And small businesses, quite simply, go dark during the match. For now, the league is winning: no goals against, plenty of businesses caught offside.