Aston Villa hosts Nottingham Forest on May 7 at Villa Park in a high-stakes Europa League semi-final second leg, with kickoff scheduled for 3 p.m. ET. Nottingham Forest holds a 1-0 advantage from the first leg, leaving Aston Villa needing a comeback on home soil to advance to the final. For viewers outside the United Kingdom - or those unwilling to pay for a broadcast subscription - there is a fully legal, cost-free method to watch the fixture live.
Why ServusTV Offers the Europa League at No Cost
ServusTV is an Austrian public broadcaster that holds free-to-air rights for UEFA Europa League fixtures in Austria. Unlike subscription-based broadcasters in the United Kingdom, the United States, or Ireland, ServusTV does not charge viewers a fee to access its live streams. The catch is geographic: ServusTV restricts access to users with Austrian IP addresses, which makes the service invisible - by default - to anyone outside Austria's borders.
This restriction is a standard content licensing mechanism. Broadcasters pay for rights within defined territories, and geo-blocking enforces those boundaries technically. It does not mean the content itself is unavailable; it means the platform checks your digital location before granting access.
How a VPN Removes Geographic Barriers
A Virtual Private Network, commonly called a VPN, works by routing your internet connection through a server in a country of your choosing. When you connect to a server located in Austria, websites and streaming platforms see an Austrian IP address rather than your actual location. To ServusTV, you appear to be a viewer within its licensed broadcast territory - and access is granted accordingly.
VPN services are not free, but most reputable providers offer money-back guarantees that function as a risk-free trial period. ExpressVPN, widely regarded as one of the most reliable options for bypassing geographic restrictions, offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. A viewer who subscribes, watches the Europa League via ServusTV, and cancels within 30 days effectively pays nothing. ExpressVPN currently prices a two-year plan at $68.40 with an additional four months included, and a single-month option at $12.99.
The process requires only a few steps:
- Subscribe to ExpressVPN (or a comparable provider with Austrian server coverage)
- Download the app on your preferred device - Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and others are supported
- Open the app and select a server located in Austria
- Visit ServusTV's website or app and begin streaming
- Cancel within the money-back guarantee window if you do not intend to keep the subscription
Choosing the Right VPN for Reliable Streaming
Not every VPN performs equally when used for live video. Streaming requires consistent bandwidth and low latency; a VPN that throttles connections or lacks stable Austrian server infrastructure will produce buffering and degraded quality. ExpressVPN is frequently cited by independent reviewers for its connection reliability and its capacity to unblock geo-restricted platforms, including ServusTV. Key specifications that make it suitable for this purpose include servers across 105 countries - Austria among them - a strict no-logging policy, support for up to 10 simultaneous device connections, and apps built for all major operating systems.
Privacy is a secondary but real benefit. A reputable VPN encrypts your internet traffic, making your browsing activity harder for third parties to monitor. For viewers using public Wi-Fi networks or shared connections, this adds a meaningful layer of digital security beyond the streaming use case alone.
The Broader Picture: Free Broadcast Rights in a Subscription Era
The existence of free-to-air broadcasting for major European club fixtures in some markets - while viewers elsewhere face paywalls - reflects the uneven structure of international media rights. Rights packages are sold territory by territory, often at vastly different prices, which produces significant discrepancies in access. Austrian viewers happen to benefit from a broadcaster willing to carry the Europa League without a subscription gate. Viewers in markets without such arrangements are left either paying for a dedicated service or finding alternative legal pathways, of which the VPN-plus-free-broadcaster route is currently the most accessible.
The money-back guarantee approach is a short-term workaround rather than a permanent solution. Viewers who want sustained access beyond a single fixture will need to weigh the cost of maintaining a VPN subscription - approximately $3 to $13 per month depending on plan length - against the value they place on free live European football coverage throughout the calendar year.
