Friend MTS (FMTS), a leading global provider of content protection services, today announced that the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), the governing body of European football, has extended its commitment to Friend MTS’s anti-piracy technologies and services in respect of all major UEFA club and national team competitions including the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Women's Champions League and UEFA Nations League.
Through the media rights to its competitions, UEFA provides vital revenue for the well-being of the sport at all levels of the professional and amateur game as well as for grassroots projects across Europe and beyond. As such, UEFA continues to invest significant resources to protect its content and remain one step ahead of illegal actors online.
Under the new agreement, Friend MTS will continue to provide UEFA with an array of class-leading services to combat piracy, including global monitoring and enforcement services backed by a 24x7 operations team. The services include monitoring and enforcement against Internet piracy (excluding social media and messaging apps which are addressed separately), dynamic delivery server blocking, and payment disruption of illegal IPTV services in addition to the removal of unauthorised apps from stores and de-listing infringing links to UEFA content from search engines.
Shane McCarthy, CEO at Friend MTS, said, “UEFA has been a trailblazer in protecting the beautiful game with effective anti-piracy and cybersecurity techniques as demonstrated by the success of the recent UEFA EURO 2024 campaign. As the new football season gets underway, we are continuing to work together to deploy and evolve our anti-piracy solutions and insights.”
