4 ways La Liga is promoting the development of football in Nigeria and around the world

La Liga oversees training programmes, value-enhancing initiatives and has signed numerous agreements with international organisations.

La Liga is being followed by billions all over the world and in recent years, the league has been playing its part in promoting the development of football around the world.

In a bid to promote the development of football, both locally and globally, La Liga oversees training programmes, value-enhancing initiatives and has signed numerous agreements with international organisations.

These efforts are all part of the institution's quest to ensure that the experience garnered throughout the history of the Spanish league serves to assist the growth of the game and its values across the globe.

These are four ways La Liga is doing this.

1. International partnerships

 

La Liga has secured 30 agreements with federations, leagues and other institutions in countries including the United States, Argentina, Portugal, Nigeria, South Africa, Thailand and Japan.

These partnerships enable the organisation to explore potential cooperation schemes and projects involving the sharing of knowledge and ideas.

With these partnerships, La Liga has been able to help in the promotion of footballs. La Liga launched its Nigerian football in 2016 and partnered with the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) for an Under-15 competition among other initiatives like taking an All-Star team from the Nigerian league to play some friendly games in Spain.

2. Promotion of local leagues

La Liga does not have the aim of becoming the most popular leagues in the countries rather.

Spanish football's governing body and its clubs aim to develop the local game internationally, while working to become the second most popular competition in each country, behind the respective domestic leagues.

This operation is based around the following four lines of action: institutional relations, the training of players and coaches, protecting the integrity of the game and social responsibility.

In Nigeria, La Liga has supported the NPFL by training coaches and sponsoring an NPFL All-Star team to Spain to play a couple of friendly games.

3. Knowledge sharing

Through its network of expert coaches, La Liga has rolled out projects in more than 30 countries, where nearly 10,000 coaches and over 120,000 players have benefited from training on the La Liga methodology, which combines on-field work at all levels with instruction on respect and the values of fair play.

Spanish football's governing body also offers other competitions its know-how in the fight against match-fixing and improving stadium security, areas which have seen LaLiga improve its standing year on year and have earned the competition role-model status amongst leagues throughout the world.

4. Corporate social responsibility

La Liga does day-to-day work, with the organisation's foundation leading projects including La Liga Santander Genuine, Future Fans (Futura Aficion) and the Fair Play Social scheme, all of which seek to repay society for part of all that it has given to the league.

The staging of the Kwamahlobo Games in South Africa, the institution's work alongside the NGO Zerca y Lejos in Cameroon, the collaboration efforts with the Vicente Ferrer Foundation in India and the La Liga School in El Salvador are just a few examples of the work that LaLiga is involved in on the international stage.