How to Watch Match of the Day in Spain or Anywhere Outside UK
In this post we’ll explain how you can enjoy Match of the Day on Saturday night from Spain – ideal for expats, holiday makers and any football fan! If you’re in a hurry and just looking for a VPN that still works with BBC iPlayer in 2024 then here’s our recommendation –
NordVPN Discount Offer
What is Match of the Day?
Match of the Day is a British television programme, shown on BBC One and BBC Two, which broadcasts football matches from the Premier League. Most of the Premiership games are highlights of the day’s games. However they do cover live matches in certain tournaments and competitions.
What football matches are shown on Match of the Day?
Premier League
Match of the Day usually features highlights from all the weekend’s Premier League action. It usually includes:
– Highlights from English Premier League matches
– Interviews with players and managers after the games.
– Analysis of key moments and team performances from around the league.
Match of the Day is one of the best sport programmes on TV anywhere. It’s been around for many, many years and the format has been improved greatly over this time. The commentators are excellent and experts are usually highly respected ex-players like Alan Shearer, Gary Lineker and Martin Keown.
FA Cup
The FA Cup is a competition held every year in England, where teams from the Premier League and Football League compete to be the champions of the tournament. The winners are awarded with the prestigious FA Cup trophy and granted entry into European competition for the following season. Additionally, the TV channel Match of The Day broadcasts live coverage of all FA Cup games throughout the tournament.
Examples of matches shown on Match Of The Day include:
- Early rounds – they tend to pick interesting ties including where lower league teams have managed to get through.
- Semifinals – Two matches between four teams that have made it through to this stage of the competition.
- Final – The final match up between two teams who have made it through to this stage undefeated. This is usually one of the most highly anticipated games of each season due to its significance as well as prestige associated with winning it all.
World Cup
The World Cup matches shown on Match of the Day vary each tournament. The games are currently equally divided between BBC and ITV, you should be able to watch every single match on one of these free to air channels. There are also highlight programs to cover lots of matches on Match of the Day most evenings of the tournament.
UEFA European Championship (Euros)
All games during this tournament are covered on UK television. They are normally equally divided like the World Up games between BBC and ITV. The BBC broadcasts it’s games via Match of the Day and also has regular highlights programmes to cover every game.
How to Watch Match of the Day (MOTD) from Spain
The easiest, cheapest and most reliable way to watch Match of the Day from Spain is to watch it from the official site – BBC iPlayer. Here you can watch each programme live when it’s broadcast which is normally on Saturday or Tuesday evenings. Or you can watch from the archive for a few days after.
Although most programmes broadcast on the BBC are available for several months – this is not the case with Match of the Day which is usually only available for a few days.
The main problem is that all the main UK TV channels including BBC iPlayer are not available outside the UK. So if you try and watch from Spain you’ll be blocked with a error message like this –
Fortunately it’s easy to bypass as thousands of British ex-pats have discovered ! You simply need to use something called a VPN to hide your current location and pretend that you’re in the UK . Sounds difficult? Only for geeks? Definitely not it’s the simplest and cheapest way to unlock the BBC iPlayer and enjoy MotD whenever you like.
Hide Your Location with a VPN
Use NordVPN BBC Servers for Programmes
The BBC don’t really like people using VPNs to watch things like Match of the Day whilst sitting in the Spanish sun! In fact, over the last few years they’ve started blocking many of the VPN services completely. NordVPN is one of the few that still work perfectly largely because they have optimized a section of their UK servers to keep working with BBC iPlayer.
They have hundreds of UK servers included in the basic subscription and you can use any of them. However if your intending on watching Match of the Day on a Saturday night with the boys (or girls) then you’d be advised to use these to avoid disappointment.
UK# 1840-1847, 1850-1863, 1865, 1869, 1873, 1875-1878, 1880-1881, 1900-1901, 1903-1904, 1911, 1913, 1917, 1919-1920.
Select any of these from the search bar and if it works well then save it to your favorites for when you want to use BBC iPlayer
Additional English Football Broadcasts Overseas
Match of the Day focuses mainly on the highest tier of English Football – The Premiership. If you follow a club which hasn’t quite made it to those levels then there is still hope to watch from Spain using a VPN.
Here’s some of your other options –
Sky TV/Go
This is where you’ll find the majority of Premiership games if you want to watch live. The Sky subscription service is also restricted to UK only but using a VPN as described above you can still watch with a UK connection. Remember though you must have an active subscription, to subscribe outside the UK you’ll need a British form of payment too i.e. a bank or credit card linked to the UK.
Amazon Prime
Amazon have the rights to quite a few Premiership games but again you’ll need to subscribe. You’ll also need to enable your UK VPN connection to use the UK version too. They don’t have a lot of games but quite a few big matches especially over holiday periods.
BBC Local Radio
Ok, so you can’t watch but the BBC covers loads of league and National league matches on their online radio stations. It’s perfect for keeping up with your local team and there’s quite a lot of coverage. All the top division of National League matches are broadcast – just select the matching local radio station.
ITVX
ITV is the UK’s second largest channel and it’s recently launched a new online web site called ITVX. The old one was ITV Hub which was pretty good but ITVX really is excellent.
They don’t have any rights currently to Premiership matches currently but they have a great highlight show every week which covers the other English leagues. It’s usually about two hours long and has all the action from the best matches. ITV also gets access to European and World Cup games usually which it shares with the BBC. The site has loads of channels and is packed full of content. The basic account is free but you can upgrade to premium for £5.99 a month or £59.99 a year – this also gives you full access to Britbox and gets rid of all the adverts.
Remember you’ll also need a UK form of payment to upgrade this account.
Try Channels in Other Countries
Remember any decent VPN subscription in 2023 should provide you with access to servers all over the world. You can use these to access free television channels in loads of different countries too. Like the BBC most large media sites restrict access to domestic users but click on a country in y oru VPN connection tab and you can join them
Most cover football to some extent but the trick is finding them on free to air channels. try places like the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia – who often have football coverage available for free on many channels. The Indian channel Star TV used to have a great sports selection available for free if you connected through an Indian VPN connection too.
FAQs
Here’s some information
How can I watch Match of the Day in Spain?
- Select a VPN provider (such as NordVPN) and sign up for their service plan of your choice (with access to UK servers).
- Download the appropriate app and install on your device.
- Start the software and connect to a UK server (see details below on BBC optimized servers)
- Head over to BBC iPlayer and register for an account if you don’t already have one.
- Submit email address, valid UK postcode and age.
- Confirm you have a UK TV license if asked (don’t worry there’s no check)
- Stream Match of the Day live usually Saturday and Tuesday evenings.
- Check MotD archive for other shows and upcoming matches – https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007t9y1
- Disconnect VPN when complete or switch to another server
Is it possible to watch Match of the Day for free in Spain?
Absolutely, although you will need to pay for a service called a VPN. This enables free access to loads of sites all over the world though.
What streaming services are available for watching Match of the Day in Spain?
In Spain, subscribers to cable, fiber, or satellite service can watch the Match of the Day in English or Spanish via authentication using their existing subscription login:
• FoxSports.com – English
• TelemundoDeportes.com – Spanish
The game will also stream on Peacock Premium ($4.99 a month), the Fox Sports app as an add-on to fuboTV , Sling TV , Hulu + Live TV , and YouTube TV . These platforms are region-locked so if you want to stream outside Spain you’ll need to get a US IP address .
Is there a way to access Match of the Day in Spain without a VPN?
Yes, there is a way to access Match of the Day in Spain without a VPN. First, you will need to find a BBC iPlayer proxy or VPN that allows you to spoof your location and appear as if you are in the UK. Then, follow the instructions provided by your provider on how to set up the service on your device and watch Match of the Day as normal.