Cloudflare wants to fix Spain’s blocking of illegal football streams ahead of next LaLiga season
Spain’s La Liga secured a court injunction forcing ISPs to block entire IP ranges belonging to Cloudflare during live football matches to curb piracy, leading to widespread collateral damage. Tens of thousands of legitimate sites—including GitHub, emergency services, and government portals—became inaccessible in Spain when matches were broadcast . Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince criticized the ruling as “bonkers,” warning that these broad blocks could “hurt Spanish citizens from accessing critical resources” and might even be life-threatening if, for example, emergency services become unreachable . La Liga defended the measure, stating that over 50% of pirate IPs are hosted via Cloudflare and accusing the company of enabling criminal activity . Cloudflare has appealed but lost at Spain’s Commercial Court No. 6 in Barcelona, and is considering further appeals at the European level .
