PSG beat Arsenal on penalties in Champions League final watched by 16 million via illegal streams

Paris Saint-Germain defeated Arsenal on penalties in the UEFA Champions League final at on Saturday evening, with Kai Havertz and Ousmane Dembélé scoring the goals in a 1-1 draw before the Gunners were eliminated in the shootout. It was Arsenal’s first appearance in the competition’s final in 20 years.

The match was the first Champions League final in history to be placed exclusively behind a paywall in the United Kingdom, with TNT Sports holding the sole broadcasting rights. According to figures reported by The Guardian, illegal streams of the game accumulated approximately 16.2 million views across the UK, traced back to around 3.7 million individual IP addresses.

TNT Sports drew an audience of roughly 7 million for the final, peaking at around 26.6 per cent of the viewing population — a figure that, set against the illegal stream numbers, underlines the scale of the access problem the paywall created.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had written to TNT Sports ahead of the game urging the channel to make the final available on free-to-air television. In his letter, Starmer argued: “The Champions League is the biggest club football competition in the world and rightly means a lot to fans in this country — the home of football. Hardworking people should not have to worry about forking out for a subscription to watch a game of this magnitude. We should be putting supporters first.”

TNT Sports declined the request. In a statement, the broadcaster said: “We have made all three UEFA finals this year available from just £4.99, the price for a month-long subscription to HBO Max.”

The disparity between TNT’s official viewership and the volume of illegal streams is likely to intensify the debate around listed events — the framework that governs which major sporting occasions must remain on free-to-air television in the UK. The Champions League final does not currently appear on that protected list, a position that critics argue is increasingly difficult to justify given the competition’s cultural prominence.