Connect with us

Cookie Policy

Why this page exists

This page lists the cookies FOOTBALL INSTANT uses, explains the job each one does and tells you how to refuse them. It is the companion to our privacy policy, which deals with reader data more widely. In one sentence: we set very few cookies of our own, the only cross-site tracking here comes from the advertising network that pays for the site, and every article remains fully readable with all non-essential cookies switched off.

What a cookie is, and what it is not

A cookie is a scrap of text a website hands to your browser with a request to send it back next time. Ours mostly carry a random identifier and nothing else, which is enough to recognise a browser that has been here before: to remember a setting, or to count a returning reader once rather than a dozen times. A cookie cannot run programs, cannot open your files and, on its own, has no idea who you are. What makes cookies matter is who else can read them and what other records those parties hold, which is why cookies set by companies other than us have a section to themselves below.

Two related mechanisms are treated as cookies on this page. Local storage holds a little more than a cookie and never leaves your device unless a script sends it. Pixels are tiny images or fragments of script whose only purpose is to record that a page or an advertisement loaded. Wherever this page says cookies, it means all three.

Cookies we set ourselves

First-party cookies belong to the futbolalinstante.com domain and can be read only by this site. There are four.

  • Consent and preferences. Stores the choices you made in the cookie banner and any display settings you pick, so that the same questions are not asked on every page.
  • Session. Holds the site together while you move from page to page, and disappears when the browser closes.
  • Analytics. Lets the measurement tool tell a returning browser from a first-time one. It carries a random identifier rather than your name, and the tool is configured not to build individual profiles.
  • Security. Helps separate people from bots when the site is under load or under attack, which on this beat means deadline day and the closing stages of a tournament.

None of the four selects advertising according to your interests, and none is shared with anyone else, including the clubs, leagues and competitions we write about.

Cookies set by others

Advertising on FOOTBALL INSTANT is delivered by a third-party advertising network, the arrangement described on our ownership and funding page. When an advertisement loads, that network may place a cookie under its own domain and read it back on any other site carrying the same network’s advertising. That is the mechanism behind interest-based advertising and it is the one place where cookie use on this site follows you beyond futbolalinstante.com. What the network does with what it gathers is governed by its own privacy policy, which repays reading. Where your local law requires consent before such cookies may be set, the code that sets them stays unloaded until you give it.

Embedded content can set cookies too. An official club or competition post that is itself the story, a video clip, a fixture widget or an interactive chart is served by the platform hosting it, which may set cookies as it loads. We embed only when the material is part of the story, and where the platform offers a mode that holds back third-party contact until you press play, that is the mode we use. What those platforms do with their cookies is outside our control.

The four categories in the banner

The consent banner groups cookies into categories, and switching each one off has a different effect.

  • Strictly necessary. The session and security cookies. Without them the site does not work, so the banner cannot disable them, although your browser can, at the cost of some functions.
  • Preferences. Switch these off and the site forgets your choices between visits, including your consent choice, which means the banner returns.
  • Analytics. Switch these off and the site behaves exactly as before; our readership figures simply become less accurate.
  • Advertising. Switch these off and advertisements still appear, but generic ones rather than ones chosen for you.

Consent and where you live

Cookie law differs by jurisdiction and our readers are in most of them. Where the GDPR applies, no non-essential cookie is set until you have consented, and the banner is built to ask honestly, with refusal as easy as acceptance. Where the CCPA or a comparable consumer privacy law applies, you may opt out of cookies used for advertising across sites, and the same controls achieve that. Everywhere else we default to the stricter approach rather than guess at the local rule. The cookie settings link in the footer lets you revisit your choice whenever you like.

Refusing, removing and signalling

The banner governs every non-essential cookie on the site and can be reopened from the footer at any time. Your browser is a second layer: every major one can display, remove and block cookies, either for all sites or for chosen ones, and can empty local storage. Those controls move between versions, so we point you to the browser’s own help pages rather than describing them here. A private or incognito window discards cookies when it closes, and nothing on this site is designed to punish that habit.

We recognise the Global Privacy Control signal, which recent browsers and extensions send automatically. When it arrives we treat it as a refusal of advertising and analytics cookies, with no need for you to open the banner. We do not use techniques that rebuild an identifier after you have deleted it.

Block every cookie and parts of the site will misbehave: your consent choice will not be remembered, so the banner keeps returning, and embedded video or official posts may fail to load. The articles will still be readable, which is the point of the site.

How long they last

Session cookies end when the browser closes. Preference and analytics cookies persist for months, so that someone who comes back for the next window, the next round of fixtures or the next tournament is recognised rather than counted as new. Advertising cookies expire on the schedule set by the network that placed them, generally somewhere between days and a little over a year. Your browser can delete any of them at any moment.

Changes and questions

If a category of cookie is added, if a provider changes, or if cookies begin serving a purpose this page does not describe, the page is updated first and the consent banner is reset so that you are asked again. Questions about cookies go to support@futbolalinstante.com with PRIVACY in the subject line.