May 23, 2026
Goal! And the internet loses?
Spanish Court Declines to Fine NordVPN over LaLiga Piracy Blocking Order
Court won't punish NordVPN yet as furious fans say football blocks are breaking the internet
TLDR: A Spanish court refused, for now, to fine NordVPN over an order tied to blocking illegal LaLiga streams, saying there’s a real dispute over whether the blocks can be done safely. Commenters are livid, joking that football crackdowns are now breaking normal websites and turning Spain’s internet into collateral damage.
Spain’s fight over illegal football streams just turned into a full-on internet meltdown saga. A court in Córdoba had ordered NordVPN and ProtonVPN to block online addresses linked to unauthorized LaLiga match streams, but now NordVPN says that same court has refused to fine it for not fully carrying out the order. Why? Because the judge appears to have accepted there’s a real argument over whether the demand can even be done cleanly without causing chaos. The bigger case is still ongoing, so this is not the final whistle.
But honestly, the comments are where the real heat is. One fed-up commenter basically summed up the national mood with: will I need a virtual private network just to open GitHub today? That complaint became the thread’s unofficial meme: people aren’t just mad about piracy blocks, they’re mad that everyday sites risk getting caught in the blast radius. Another commenter went scorched-earth on Spain’s football obsession, arguing that LaLiga has too much power because fans keep feeding the machine. Others cheered NordVPN with a simple “good on them,” while warning that throwing massive internet blocks at a problem where web addresses change constantly is like trying to catch smoke with oven mitts.
And then came the revenge fantasy crowd: sue LaLiga, sue the courts, sue everybody. The vibe is clear: this isn’t just about piracy anymore. For a lot of people, it’s become a story about whether football bosses are allowed to break chunks of the web to protect TV rights.
Key Points
- •A Spanish court declined LaLiga’s request to impose coercive fines on NordVPN over alleged non-compliance with a February blocking order.
- •In February, the Commercial Court No. 1 of Córdoba ordered NordVPN and ProtonVPN to block IP addresses hosting illegal LaLiga football streams.
- •NordVPN said the court accepted that there was a genuine technical dispute over compliance, including rapidly changing IP addresses and risks of overblocking lawful sites.
- •Both NordVPN and ProtonVPN challenged the Spanish court’s jurisdiction on the basis that they are incorporated outside the European Union.
- •LaLiga said the ruling only set aside fines for now and does not remove NordVPN’s obligation to implement IP blocks where piracy can be proven.