Revealed: Full list of areas targeted in 'Dodgy Fire Sticks' crackdown to stop fans illegally streaming Premier League football

A crackdown on illegal Premier League streaming via 'dodgy' Amazon Fire Sticks is targeting a wide range of areas across the United Kingdom. 

Bosses are keen to stop the modified devices being used as they are estimated to cost broadcasters and sports bodies billions per year. 

For years, illegal streamers have watched live sport and other premium content using jailbroken Fire Sticks - adjusted versions of the legal product released by Amazon.

In June, Daily Mail Sport reported that as many as 59 per cent of UK Fire Stick owners admitted to using the device for illegal streaming purposes.

Now FACT (the Federation Against Copyright Theft) is teaming up with police across the UK to sniff out and punish those who illegally access what everybody else pays for. 

You can find the full list of areas targeted below. 

Last year, FACT and multiple police forces carried out a fortnight-long enforcement operation targeting 30 suppliers of illicit IPTV services. People were visited in person and ceast-and-desist letters were sent out, with the threat of criminal prosecution. 

Kieron Sharp, Chairman of FACT, said: 'FACT’s enforcement activities against illegal streaming are ongoing throughout the year. 

'Together with our partners and the police, we constantly review new intelligence and target those areas of the UK and Ireland where the data shows that illegal streaming activity is taking place.

'Our investigations are thorough, and we are relentless in our determination to stop illegal streaming and bring offenders to justice. To avoid jeopardising operations that are in progress, we do not share details publicly until enforcement action has been completed.'

Earlier this month, Amazon released a brand-new Fire Stick model which will make it very difficult to watch 'fully loaded' content.

Firstly, users of the latest model are, for now, not able to download VPNs (virtual private networks), which allow illegal streamers to hide their location.

Revealing that this change is something which will be addressed by Amazon in the future, a spokesperson told CordBusters at the product's launch: 'At initial retail availability, the new Fire TV 4K Select running Vega OS won't support VPN apps, so NordVPN won't be available in the App Store on day one.

'Amazon plans to enable VPN protocols via a software update in late October. Our app is ready, and we'll make it available in the Amazon App Store for the new Fire TV devices as soon as that update goes live.'

Even if VPNs are restored by late October, there's no guarantee illegal streamers will be able to access jailbroken content in the same way they did before.

That's because the Fire Stick's new system prevents illegal streaming apps from being downloaded on the device.

Rather than using the open Android operating system, Fire Sticks will now be dressed with a new in-house alternative known as Vega, which is specifically designed not to run sideloaded apps.

Dodgy apps that were used on previous Android-run devices will now not work on the new Fire Sticks.

It comes after Sky, the largest broadcaster of Premier League matches in the UK, criticised Amazon for not doing enough to clamp down on piracy earlier this year.

'There are football fans who literally have shirts printed with "dodgy boxes and fire sticks" on them,' Sky's chief operating officer Nick Herm said.

Following repeated alerts from the Premier League in recent years, there has been a major focus on tackling illegal streaming in the UK.

This has led to a string of arrests, including one man based in Halifax earlier this year, with Sonny Kanda jailed for two years after cheating legitimate providers out of more than £108,000 across an 18-month period between 2020 and 2022.

Research in 2023 by the Intellectual Property Office claimed that nearly four million people in the UK had illegally streamed live sport in the previous year.

In the 2023-24 season, it was estimated that fans had to pay around £870 each year in TV subscriptions if they wished to see all televised Premier League games.