Football is extremely popular, and football clubs (and their owners) are quite influential (socially and politically). But it's a little bigger than that.

EU is pushing for measures against live-event piracy[1], because they frame this as a systemic threat to cultural/economic systems, giving national regulators broad cover to act aggressively.

While football is quite huge in Europe at large, the impact to GDP of these broadcasting rights is sub-1%; however, lobbyists have a disproportionate impact: you have the leagues themselves (LaLiga and Serie A for Spain and Italy respectively), you have the football clubs, and you've got broadcasters. Combined, they swing quite high, even if the actual capital in play is much lower than the total they represent.

Add to this politicians who can frame these measures as "protecting our culture", get kickbacks in the form of free tickets to high profile games, see rapid action because blocks are immediately felt and very visible, and incentives for increased funding from regulatory agencies because "we need the budget to create the systems to coordinate this", and you can see how the whole system can push this way, even if it is a largely blunt instrument with massive collateral damage.

[1] - https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=intcom%3...

Football, the clubs, are also major driver of money laundering. Dirty cash buys a lot of politicians.

https://www.comsuregroup.com/news/a-red-card-for-dirty-money...