Kieran Maguire: Liverpool braced for ‘incredible challenge’ as £89m on the line in Uefa crackdown
Liverpool are among a number of clubs that could boost their broadcast income if Uefa are successful in their latest campaign against piracy in football.
That is the view of finance expert Kieran Maguire, who spoke exclusively to Football Insider about the cost of piracy to broadcasters and football clubs.
As reported by SportBusiness, Uefa has announced plans to launch a request for proposals (RFP) process to appoint companies that can provide assistance on internet piracy.
The RFP will seek to appoint one or more service providers to provide monitoring and enforcement services across the internet and social media.
Football Insider sources revealed on 5 April that Uefa is plotting a major crackdown on broadcast piracy.
Liverpool pocketed £89.2million during their Champions League campaign in 2021/22, which saw the Reds reach the final in Paris.
Maguire believes it is an ‘incredible challenge’ for broadcasters to stamp out piracy and it could result in lower-value television deals in the future.
“Talking to broadcasters, they estimate that they lose between 10-15 per cent of their revenues due to piracy issues,” Maguire told Football Insider.
“That figure is probably even higher in some overseas markets.
“It is an incredible challenge for the Premier League, EFL and Uefa to extract higher revenues from their broadcast partners.
“It is essentially digital shoplifting and the loss of revenues gets spread through a lower number of subscribers who are willing to pay for broadcasting.
“Either that or it will have a negative impact on what broadcasters are willing to pay for television rights.“
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