OneFootball: Bundesliga with VPN for free in the stream: is it legal?

If you want to see all games of the Bundesliga in Germany, you have to take out paid subscriptions to DAZN and Sky. Broadcasting rights are distributed differently abroad, so you can watch the Bundesliga via other providers. In Brazil, Bundesliga games are streamed legally and free of charge on OneFootball. Can the offer be accessed in Germany?

OneFootball is first a completely legal service. So it is not a shady streaming portal where sports broadcasts are illegally put online. In Germany, for example, you can legally watch the games of the 3rd Bundesliga individually on OneFootball if you do not want to access the MagentaSport subscription.

OneFootball holds the rights for Brazil all games of the 1st and 2nd Bundesliga. If you are traveling in the South American country, you can completely legal and without hesitation Tune in to the stream for free during Bundesliga games. An account is not necessary. Matches are shown with English or Portuguese commentary. The games are not available in German.

From Germany, however, there is no normal access to these Bundesliga broadcasts. If you visit the offer with a German IP, you cannot access the live transmissions for licensing reasons. This is what is known as Geboblocking. Can this be avoided?

Technically it is possible with a VPN (“Virtual Private Network”) to get an IP from abroad. If you have the right provider, you can fool the OneFootball servers on German soil with a Brazilian IP.

This is how the opening game of the Bundesliga was announced on Twitter:

However, not all VPN providers offer an option for a Brazilian IP. The bandwidth is also severely limited, especially with the free services, so that the transmissions cannot be streamed properly. However, using a VPN service itself is legal. So you can technically change your location.

Still, watching the free Bundesliga streams is via OneFootball not allowed. If you use a VPN for the service, you are violating the provider’s terms of service. That’s what they say in point 7.8 of the OneFootball Terms and Conditions:

“You must not circumvent or attempt to circumvent usage restrictions, such as territorial restrictions via a VPN […]“.

What are you threatened with? According to point 7.10 of the Terms of Use that:

“If you violate these rules, we are entitled to warn you, temporarily block you or even completely exclude you from using the platforms […]“

So watching the Bundesliga on OneFootball with a VPN is not criminal or illegal per se. However, this is a violation of the provider’s terms of use. In addition, you have to accept some disadvantages take, for example a commentator in a foreign language. It is also unclear to what extent the servers will hold up if, in addition to the planned viewers from Brazil, numerous football fans in Germany suddenly access the streaming offer who are not intended for it. If you want to see the Bundesliga games in Germany as planned, you can still get DAZN and Sky subscriptions at a reasonable combined price.

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