Colombian club fined for showing games online without permission

The Dimayor (División Mayor del Fútbol Profesional Colombiano), the body responsible for the top two football divisions in Colombia, has fined second-tier club América de Cali 44.21 million Colombian pesos (€18,800/$24,400) for showing live online coverage of the team’s games without permission, according to the Terra news website.

América was sanctioned after showing live coverage of its away game at Bogotá on February 4, and its home games against Deportivo Cali on March 13 and Real Cartagena on March 18 via its website, Americadecali.tv.

The club also provided access to the live coverage via its pages on social networking websites Facebook and Twitter.

The game against Real Cartagena attracted an online audience of more than 136,000, the report said.

The Dimayor added that commercial broadcaster RCN and Win Sports, the new pay-television channel that is jointly owned by RCN and pay-television broadcaster DirecTV, are the only rights-holders for the coverage.