The Spanish football league La Liga has admitted that its official smartphone app has been making audio recordings in order to identify pirate broadcasts of football games.

The league said its app detected the location of users, and if they were found to be in a bar, it then recorded audio clips using phone microphones.

The app used an algorithm to identify whether the person was watching a football game from the recording and compared that with their location to see if it the bar owner had paid for a licence to show the game or not.

La Liga has denied any wrongdoing and said that users allowed the app to access their location and microphone in an optional clause when they sign up to the app. It denied that any league employees listened to captured audio.

The app has been downloaded 10 million times around the world, reported El Diario, but La Liga said that no audio was recorded from any users outside Spain.