Polish Viaplay briefly allowed viewing of the Champions League despite the lack of broadcasting rights.
Autumn is the time for the Champions League football, which fans can watch on Canal+ until the 2026/27 season. Despite the fact that the platform has exclusive rights to broadcast the matches, the matches could be watched on Viaplay, a Scandinavian service that shows, among other things, the Premier League. How on earth? Well, it was enough to use a small loophole.
Geoblocking did not work – Polish viewers could log in to Scandinavian versions of Viaplay
The rights to broadcast the Champions League also mean the rights to collect huge amounts of money, so the platforms with broadcasting rights vary depending on the country. In Poland, it’s Canal+, but in Denmark, it’s the aforementioned Viaplay. It turned out that the geolocation barrier didn’t work on the Vistula for some reason, which opened the door for Polish Viaplay subscribers to the Champions League as part of their subscription.
Jak brings the portal WirutalneMediaviewers themselves reported to the editorial office with information about a loophole that allowed watching the Champions League outside Canal+. It was enough to use Polish login details on the Danish, Norwegian or Swedish Viaplay site to gain access without using VPN or other tools to bypass geolocation blocks. It was only after WirtualneMedia intervened that the Scandinavian versions of Viaplay began to display an error message.
We have verified the situation that occurred in Poland, where some of our users’ profiles were able to access geoblocked content. The situation only affected internet devices accessing the service via the website. This issue was reported to our technical department and immediately resolved – Viaplay press office in a statement for WirtualneMedia
The company said the bug only affected computers and browsers – it didn’t occur in the app – but it didn’t say why the regional lock didn’t work. The source suggests the bug could have been related to European Union regulations that require subscribers to temporarily access content covered by their subscription in other EU countries.
Stock image from Depositphotos
Source: antyweb.pl
