this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2025
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Technology

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93
My game's server is blocked in Spain whenever there's a football match on (old.reddit.com)
submitted 3 days ago by Pro@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world
11 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/38002596

Private front-end.

Hello, I am a guy that makes a funny rhythm game called Project Heartbeat. I'm based in Spain.

Recently, I got a home server, and decided to throw in a status report software on it that would notify me through a telegram channel whenever my game's server is unreachable.

Ever since then I've noticed my game's server is seemingly unplayable at times, which was strange because as far as I could tell the server was fine, and I could even see it accepting requests in the log.

Then it hit me: I use cloudflare

Turns out, the Spanish football league (LaLiga) has been given special rights by the courts to ask ISPs to block any IPs they see fit, and the ISPs have to comply. This is not a DNS block, otherwise my game wouldn't be affected, it's an IP block.

When there's a football match on (I'm told) they randomly ban cloudflare IP ranges.

Indeed every single time I've seen the server go down from my telegram notifications I've jumped on discord and asked my friends, who watch football, if there's a match on. And every single time there was one.

Wild.

Comments

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[–] blob42@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Solution:

Use a VPS somewhere that will act as a proxy to your home server.

Connect the VPS to your home with wireguard/tailscale and do reverse proxy to your game server.

Now the public IP will be your VPS. Host it in an other close by country.

Of the IP does get flagged, change the VPS provider and keep the exact same setup.

Read /r/selfhosted or use GPT for a step by step guide

[–] nuggie_ss 2 points 1 day ago

FIFA and its followers are a plague on humanity.

[–] brsrklf@jlai.lu 28 points 2 days ago

Wow that's bullshit. A freaking sports mafia has the power to cripple the internet.

[–] arararagi@ani.social 17 points 2 days ago

This is some insane overreach

[–] RickyRigatoni@retrolemmy.com 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

What is it about sports that makes the world go insane

[–] nuggie_ss 3 points 1 day ago

Stupid people.

[–] Gonzako@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I bloody hate those mafiosos. They stop me from actually making money

[–] SippyCup@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Skill issue

[–] Gonzako@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

it truly is a skill issue and skill issued world

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 19 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Techradar did an article about this I for some reason remember seeing. (I don't live in Spain).

Edit: article I think it was at the time: https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/cloudflare-wants-to-fix-spains-blocking-of-illegal-football-streams-ahead-of-next-laliga-season

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 days ago

That's ridiculous. If they're having piracy issues, that means they need to improve their service. Make watching the game easier than pirating it, and people won't pirate it.

Here are some ideas:

  • have an online free tier, and allow ad-blockers (discourage them if you like, but don't stop the stream)
  • provide paid addons that people might want, like player stats, player labels, etc
  • provide discounts on merch for people who pay to watch the game online or live
  • provide a reasonably priced ad-free tier, like €5/month or something, and make these available internationally

In short, make it so easy to get content and so attractive to pay for upgrades and nobody will want to pirate.