Exclusive: LaLiga aiming to bring teams in India for a friendly match

Manasi Pathak

Exclusive: LaLiga aiming to bring teams in India for a friendly match image

La Liga India country head Jose Cachaza has revealed that Spain's Premier Division is aiming to organise a friendly match involving LaLiga clubs in India in the near future. 

This was revealed by Cachaza in an exclusive chat with Goal wherein he also discussed LaLiga’s plans for fan engagement in India and their relationship with the Indian Super League (ISL).

"Our plan, in the future, would also be to manage a La Liga team coming to India to play a friendly match. I cannot forecast a date but it is definitely in our plans," mentioned Cachaza.

He went on to comment on the nature of fan engagement in India as well. "The fan engagement has been good so far; the situation of football in India plays a key role. Football is becoming a more relevant sport for Indians now and nobody can doubt that it has become the second (most followed) sport after cricket,’’ commented Cachaza. 

"In this environment, the engagement with La Liga is going really well. The TV audiences have been growing for the last few years and so has the fan engagement through social media. We had 300, 000 followers two years back and now we are close to two million fans on Facebook. This proves the Indian fans have an eye on La Liga,’’ he added.

In the past, the La Liga has arranged match screenings for the fans across the country. On being asked if they have similar plans, Jose answered, "We are planning to do more and more screenings. Usually, the El Clasico is the easy thing to do. In the future, we’d like to do (screenings) for big games too.

"A Barcelona vs Atletico Madrid or Madrid Derby would be a good case for doing a small-scale screening, comprising of three to four thousand fans. Also among our ideas is that LaLiga ambassadors will keep coming here. It’s good for LaLiga and the football environment in India.’’

Finally, when asked if La Liga are in contact with the Indian football clubs, he said, "As La Liga, we have good relations with ISL; it helps those teams to go to Spain for pre-season matches. The relationship is existent but it is not a formal relationship or an agreement with La Liga. We are in contact with them to see how can we help them."




 

Manasi Pathak