Mumbai: LaLiga has begun 2023 by reaching a milestone with LaLiga Grassroots, the initiative under which it brings together the know-how, experience and projects to promote grassroots football all over the world. The project has developed more than 640 permanent and temporary projects in 48 countries including India.

In India, The LaLiga Football Schools (LLFS) project that was initiated in 2018 in partnership with ‘India On Track’’ has grown its impact to 10,000+ students in the country. The program is developed and administered by UEFA pro-licensed coaches from Spain and continues to provide local talent an access to global football methodology and technical training for students aged between 9 to 15 years. Furthermore, the program also develops football coaches and administrators, through international exchange of knowledge. This in turn helps in the holistic development of the players in line with LaLiga methodology encompassing 4 key areas: Tactical-cognitive, technical-coordinative, physical-conditional, and psycho-socio-affective.

Recently announcing the new LLFS ‘Development Program’, LLFS will continue to broaden the scope of its operation in India providing elite under 13 & under 15 players with advance training and competitive game time in the MDFA 2nd Division League and other official competitions. Along with the setting up of a ‘Goalkeeper School’, the commencement of the ‘West India Cup’ & a roadmap to set up India’s first ‘Development Centre’ the vision continues to be facilitators for growth of Indian talent. The project started as a pro bono cooperation with national associations and has become a self-sustained business unit providing top-quality coaching in 48 countries. In India, LaLiga has opened schools and is working independently from sports authorities but maintains good relationships with them. The sports scenario in India is changing, and while cricket remains dominant, younger fans in urban areas are appreciating football more. LaLiga sees the growth of Indian football as beneficial for the entire ecosystem and hopes to convince brands to invest more in other sports besides cricket.

Indiantelevision.com caught up with Jose Antonio Cachaza, LaLiga India Managing Director on the grass root initiative, the growth of football in India and much more…….

On the grass root project globally

Well, it's a project that comes directly from our international strategy. It started like six years back with a kind of loose idea of bringing to the rest of the world our way of understanding football, our way of coaching way football. So that's the origin and in the beginning, it started pro bono with national associations here and there. Little by little it started becoming a business unit, that doesn't look for profits but has become self-sustained, giving good top-quality coaching at different levels in 48 countries. It's directed by UEFA pro coaches with a lot of experience and it's been quite a successful project because it also helped us to connect with the funds and improve our brand qualities in the countries where we do these projects. 

And also the way give you opportunities for training. In Spain they're both paid and also there are some scholarships. 

On the grassroots initiatives India. 

Presently we don't have any ties up. This is a private approach. We have a very good relationship with everybody from ISL to AIFF. I am blessed to meet the new president, Kalyan Chaubey, who has great ideas to develop the sport and Shaji Prabakaran and I know him almost from the first day I came to India. We have a very good relationship with everybody, but our line of work is pretty much independent of them. And with the government of India, we don't have that much of a relationship. 

Yes, with football authorities with whom we have a great relationship and be ready to help them, as we do know, with small things like helping them solve problems when they want to be in Spain. So, a great relationship, but this line of work is independent in the organizational part. Another different story is as we said before; we are trying to contribute by not just training players but also participating in the federation competitions. 

On the LaLiga schools in Maharashtra, going forward in 2023 are you planning to open such schools across India? 

I think we have on line seven new schools to be opened in the next two months. Just need to understand that in 2020, because of the covid, it slowed down, we are now doing it slowly, and the growth will happen gradually that's the idea. We are working on it and opening a school in Tamil Nadu and that is a new market. 

We are in conversations with other states. It is impossible to do it alone and in India, you need to rely on local talent and local partners. 

On partnering with brands

No. Usually, big brands have their ventures. If you're thinking of sponsorships, what they look for is big ROI. So they can team with LaLiga as a whole, but not with these initiatives, which in the end is a small project. We are in conversations with one of the top Indian sponsors for sponsoring these best student trips to Spain. We were close and then COVID came. So this is one of the issues that we need to re-look into. 

On your Vision for 2023 and how has the sports picture changed India in the past few years

It has been quite a huge pressure in the market. What with the IPL rights and huge monies riding on it? Then you have this creation of cricket leagues in other countries, but, quite a lot in terms of business, depending on the Indian market. There is a big question mark. Are the broadcasters putting all the eggs in the cricket basket? Is there room for anybody else? It's a huge question mark. 

So I know that from the other perspective the good thing for us and we are not in a rush. You have to be patient in India to keep growing. I think on the one hand we are with the right partner right now, which is Viacom 18 team. We have good partners with the agencies that we are working with from Indian Track, MSL and Rise worldwide. Of course, the big picture is clear Cricket gets 85% of the brand spends. We are doing some research which shows that at least in urban India young fans appreciate both cricket and football. 

Urban India in terms of numbers is just a part of the whole market, but in terms of business future, it's a quite relevant one. So I think football will keep gaining space in the Indian sports landscape and there is a strong loyalty. ISL, gets consolidated and fans start looking at it and it is necessary for the health of the football ecosystem. I always say this we are very interested in ISL consolidating because the growth of ISL implies the growth of football funding in India and that's good for us. We'll be always foreigners. It doesn't matter if we are the number two or the number one. Depends on how you look at it, in terms of money, we're number two. 

In terms of football, we say we are number one in the world. We need the football fan base to grow in India and not to fight against crickets. That's also why we have this relationship with Rohit Sharma; this is to tell cricket fans, you can love football as well. So it's never football or cricket, its cricket and football. That's our approach, I mean sports lobbying is not monogamous, it's quite polygamous but the money is what we need to fight and convince brands to invest a lot in other sports too.