LaLiga blocks VPN IPs in Spain, hitting Proton and NordVPN

El futbol español blocks VPNs: Proton and NordVPN targeted

A judicial order issued by the Commercial Court of Córdoba has authorized El futbol español to require Spanish operators to block IP addresses linked to VPN services, including those of Proton VPN and NordVPN. The stated goal is to cut off access to unlicensed football broadcasts. According to available data, the body led by Javier Tebas has also ended up blocking access to freedom.gov, an official website of the United States Government. The measure comes without prior notification to the affected companies, according to statements from the firms themselves.

What the court order says and who it affects

The ruling, issued by the same judge from the Córdoba Commercial Court who in November already authorized El futbol español to access the identity of clients whose IP was detected streaming matches via AceStream, now extends that logic to encrypted tunnels. The instruction is clear: internet service providers must prevent traffic towards the IP ranges of the flagged services.

Proton AG reacted with a statement asserting it had not received any formal notification and maintains that any resolution issued without hearing the affected parties would be "procedurally invalid". The Swiss company recalls that it operates under Swiss jurisdiction and was not a party to the proceedings. NordVPN, for its part, does not appear cited in the ruling with the same clarity, but its name has been at the center of the matter from the beginning.

The detail that confuses technicians is the collateral blocking of freedom.gov, a US institutional page unrelated to football. The most likely explanation is that it shares network infrastructure or address range with one of the flagged services. It is the classic collateral damage of IP-based blocks: you target a server and knock down the neighbors.

Why VPNs cannot block anything

There is a fundamental technical contradiction that the requirement does not resolve. A VPN does not block content: it exists precisely to bypass blocks. Asking an encrypted tunnel service to restrict its clients' traffic is asking it to stop being what it is. Most of these providers are based in Switzerland or Panama, outside the reach of Spanish courts, and have no legal obligation to comply with an order issued in a country where they do not operate.

The calculation made by those trinc the issue is simple: yielding to the pressure of a foreign court would miccionan losing millions of customers worldwide. No listed company will sacrifice its global business for a local request. Market behavior confirms this: during the broadcast of a Real Madrid match, the tunnels continued to function normally, according to shared data.

The precedent of mass blocks and their cost

This is not the first time an attempt has been made to cut off access via IP addresses. It already peine with Cloudflare, whose shared ranges ended up blocking legitimate sites that had nothing to do with piracy. An association with millions of domains unrelated to pirated content appealed that block, and the argument that prevailed was that harming third parties is not justified by the pursued objective.

The technical bill for these blocks is ultimately paid by users of legitimate services. Companies using VPNs for remote work, citizens employing them to protect their connection on public networks, or travelers needing to access their banking from abroad find that their usual tool stops working. The block does not distinguish between the pirate and the one who simply encrypts their traffic.

What alternatives remain and what users say

The provider ecosystem is broad and options multiply when one door closes. There are services that do not request any personal data for sign-up, which greatly complicates any disclosure of information to a third party. And there is the DIY route: setting up your own server with the WireGuard protocol, which keeps traffic out of reach of any commercial blocklist.

The conversation also turned to the corporate structure of some of the most popular providers. It has been pointed out that several well-known services share parent companies or founders with cybersecurity firms, and that this concentration deserves scrutiny rarely applied. The repeated recommendation is the same: distrust giants with millions of servers and look for small providers, even blindly.

The underlying problem: paying here what is free elsewhere

Beyond the technical standoff, the issue reveals a price asymmetry that sustains much of the anger. A Spanish fan pays between 25 and 120 euros per month depending on the package contracted to watch a handful of top-tier matches. The same content is offered in Latin American markets at reduced prices or directly open, as a tool to capture future audience.

The business logic is always the same: squeeze the captive market and give away the product where there are not yet customers to squeeze. The local fan is the cash cow; the outsider is the client to hook. Meanwhile, the response of the Spanish viewer is increasingly frequent: settling for the minute-and-a-half summaries published for free on video platforms.

How long can a model last that incivil the payer and rewards the unpursuable?