Once the ball starts rolling in the Spanish league, the game is on for some 50 analysts who start looking for signs of online piracy.

They scan websites, social media posts, IPTV platforms and streaming portals in search of illegal broadcasts of La Liga matches.

The trained analysts identify the pirated content and take the steps needed to take them off air, including notifying Internet intermediaries like Cloudflare, the U.S.-based company whose content-delivery network is believed to manage nearly 20% of the Internet traffic worldwide.

And that’s when the real fight begins for the Spanish league.

La Liga, one of the most active European leagues fighting piracy and audiovisual fraud, accuses Cloudflare of ignoring illegal content and not doing enough to block it. It says Cloudflare plays a decisive role in the dissemination of online piracy that significantly hurts the soccer industry.

Protecting its content is key for the league, which recently sold domestic........

© Fast Company