The Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice recently announced that it has seized nearly 400 Internet domain names used for illegal live broadcasts of World Cup matches. The targets include websites that provide viewers with unauthorized live streaming of the 2026 World Cup matches, determining that they violate U.S. copyright laws.
This operation was coordinated through the "International Cyber Hacking and Intellectual Property (ICHIP) Network" formed by U.S. prosecutors. Law enforcement agencies targeted servers and domain names distributed in Peru, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Poland, and Colombia, and implemented unified operations. The homepage of the blocked website has now been replaced with a law enforcement banner, which shows that "this website has been blocked by law enforcement agencies" and indicates that this operation belongs to the "Offsides Operation" led by the National Intellectual Property Coordination Center of the United States. It is jointly carried out with multinational law enforcement agencies and private sector partners to protect consumers and enforce intellectual property protection on a global scale.
Law enforcement officials said that the target of this seizure is not only the copyright infringement itself, but also the security risks surrounding these illegal streaming platforms. The relevant person in charge pointed out that while such pirated broadcast websites illegally provide event content, they often expose viewers to threats such as malware attacks and unsecured connections, which may lead to the theft or leakage of personal and financial data. In terms of obtaining specific clues, U.S. law enforcement agencies have received assistance from FIFA, beIN Media Group, NBCUniversal, the Alliance for Creative and Entertainment (ACE) under the Motion Picture Association of America, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), and Warner Bros. to jointly identify a large number of pirated domain names that were seized this time.
Not long before this announcement, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued an early warning in May this year, saying that there were a large number of fake sites pretending to be the official FIFA website, taking advantage of the 2026 World Cup to commit fraud. The FBI pointed out at the time that these fake websites committed fraud by selling fake tickets and hospitality packages, collecting personal and financial information, and may also be linked to other scams and fraudulent activities, posing real risks to ordinary fans.
In addition to the actions taken by the United States, the international community has recently continued to increase its crackdown on piracy of sports events. Last week, ACE, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), the Spanish anti-piracy association UC3, and Mexican authorities jointly seized 44 domain names related to the large-scale sports piracy platform PirloTV. These sites combined have more than 950 million visits per year, of which about 230 million come from Mexico. The report shows that PirloTV mainly operates by aggregating and embedding live links to illegal sports events (especially football matches). After regulatory authorities in various countries carry out law enforcement, the platform often circumvents blocking measures by frequently changing domain names.
When introducing this crackdown, ACE pointed out that PirloTV’s main audience is concentrated in Latin America, with particularly large users in Mexico and Colombia. At the same time, the platform also has considerable traffic in markets such as Spain and the United States. Multiple media cited reports that as major legal broadcast platforms impose access restrictions on different regions and devices, and broadcast rights are highly fragmented, some viewers have turned to pirate platforms such as PirloTV to watch the 2026 World Cup on mobile phones and other terminals, exacerbating the complexity of the piracy problem.
As various law enforcement actions continue to advance, the U.S. Department of Justice and partner agencies emphasized that they will continue to take action against illegal sports event streaming media and related network infrastructure to maintain the copyright order of major events such as the World Cup. Law enforcement authorities also called on the public to watch live events through officially authorized channels to avoid risks such as financial losses, data leaks or malware infections caused by using illegal platforms.