The TV rights holders for football matches want to block pirate streams by any means necessary. Spain appears to be the worst, people get arrested in the UK for profiting off streams (so far, but the communication is pretty aggressive towards consumers too), I don't know about the other countries mentioned.
They largely can't do anything against consumers in the UK. One of the largest ISPs gave up sending the threatening letters because everyone just ignored them. Occassionally one of the tabloid hacks will write a piece about how naughty you are for pirating the latest <TV series finale>.
Most people just set up a seedbox with a VPN connection (this is what I do) and I never worry about it.
Wow, that's insane! If TV right holders actually got their way, it would enable them to control how a match is framed, and manipulate how the match is perceived at a country-level. Surely everybody watching should be able to see the same match being played, regardless of who controls the camera? The situation you describe sounds like a recipe for corruption and exploitation!
I appreciate the attempt, but I'm still dumbfounded by that comment. After all, pirate streams are 1:1 copy of the official ones, and news censorship isn't about seeding newspaper scans…
