The VoetbalTV OTT platform, which showed amateur football matches in the Netherlands, has gone bankrupt after it was found to have breached data protection legislation, according to local media.
The platform was launched by the Dutch football federation KNVB and commercial broadcaster Talpa TV in 2017 to show matches from the country’s third-tier of league football, the Tweede Divisie, all the way down to youth leagues.
However, the Dutch Data Protection Authority ruled that a commercial body could not film players without their explicit consent and that children under 13 years could not be filmed at all.
VoetbalTV used ‘smart’ cameras to produce automatic video coverage of the matches. The technology allowed the platform to show live coverage, automatically create summaries and highlight goals. The coverage could be sponsored, with clubs taking a share of revenues.
The platform had already been provisionally suspended since August 27 because of the regulator’s ruling, with its owner’s originally planning an appeal in October.
According to local outlet Emerce, that appeal could still happen as both the regulator and VoetbalTV’s owners had already been invited to attend court prior to the bankruptcy filing.