Serie A and Italy’s Broadcast Regulator Locked in Bitter Dispute With Cloudflare That Could Threaten Public Security

The latest chapter in Serie A’s fight against piracy may be the most significant yet, with Italy’s broadcast and communications regulator AGCOM issuing a penalty to Cloudflare for refusing to block access to illegal steams.

Serie A piracy has been a long-standing issue in Italy’s top-flight. Officials often point towards illegal streaming as the sole cause of steadily declining viewership in recent years, despite other factors such as Italy’s young talent drain still at large.

The €14.2 million fine issued to Cloudflare comes under Italy’s Piracy Shield; a law introduced in 2024 to allow rapid blockage of illegal streams – particularly in Serie A – which gives greater protection to broadcasters such as DAZN and Sky.

AGCOM argues Cloudflare were required to disable DNS resolution of domain names and routing of traffic to IP addresses reported by copyright holders.

However, Cloudflare responded by arguing that applying filters such as this would increase latency, but also affect DNS resolution for sites that aren’t subject to piracy.

While AGCOM argued that this would impose no risk to legitimate websites, a detailed report on Italy’s Piracy Shield published in September 2025 revealed “hundreds of legitimate websites unknowingly affected by blocking.”

Researchers continued by saying “illegal streamers continue to evade enforcement by exploiting the abundance of address space online, leaving behind unusable and polluted address ranges.”

Italy’s Broadcast Regulator AGCOM Fines Cloudflare

The timeline of events since AGCOM issued the fine to Cloudflare has uncovered an unstable relationship between the two entities, who are now threatening each other with potentially harmful action.

January 8th

AGCOM issue the €14.2m fine to Cloudflare, citing a short and technical officialese to back up their sanction.

January 9th

Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince argues that the requirement of a 30-minute window to censor an illegal site leaves no room for due process.

He said: “The scheme, which even the EU has called concerning, required us within a mere 30 minutes of notification to fully censor from the Internet any sites a shadowy cabal of European media elites deemed against their interests.

Prince then went on to fire off a huge warning shot to Italy’s regulatory body, which could soon threaten the nation’s online public security.

“Cloudflare is considering the following actions: 1) discontinuing the millions of dollars in pro bono cyber security services we are providing the upcoming Milano-Cortina Olympics; 2) discontinuing Cloudflare’s free cyber security services for any Italy-based users; 3) removing all servers from Italian cities; and 4) terminating all plans to build an Italian Cloudflare office or make any investments in the country.”

Yesterday a quasi-judicial body in Italy fined @Cloudflare $17 million for failing to go along with their scheme to censor the Internet. The scheme, which even the EU has called concerning, required us within a mere 30 minutes of notification to fully censor from the Internet any… pic.twitter.com/qZf9UKEAY5

— Matthew Prince 🌥 (@eastdakota) January 9, 2026

January 10th

Serie A responded which an unusually short statement, accusing Cloudfare of “a heap of distortions, threats, and falsehoods” before saying “it has nothing to do with internet censorship, it concerns exclusively the protection of copyright.”

What Does This Mean For Serie A Broadcasting?

Matthew Prince said AGCOM and Serie A “playing stupid games” would win them “stupid prizes”, but just how serious Cloudflare are about pulling out of cybersecurity commitments in Italy remains to be seen.

The internet service company feel that AGCOM are demanding censorship on a global scale, which of course extends beyond their jurisdiction, but also negatively affects the user experience on law-abiding sites.

Given the time constraints of the Piracy Shield, real-time legal judgment ultimately risks pulling lawful sites into the same bracket as illegal ones, and with little procedural requirements.

While Serie A’s disproportionately high draw rate and relative low scoring may have turned viewers off, CEO Luigi De Siervo has long blamed piracy for declining viewership. He revealed that the league lost $345.3m in revenue last year due to illegal streaming.

Professional leagues are working in tandem with regulators to demand faster and more aggressive action from cybersecurity providers, but this public feud has shifted the lens from a microcosm of Italy’s top-flight to a wider political conversation.

Matthew Prince described a “shadowy cabal of European media” in his public statement, which reflects Cloudflare’s scepticism in setting a precedent of allowing a nation to impose rules beyond its borders.

Cloudflare’s threats could jeopardise the future of sports broadcasting in Italy, particularly if there is no infrastructure left to stop piracy and illegal streaming.