The Spanish top flight, LALIGA has announced a partnership extension with the South Korean football league, K League.
Following the extension, both leagues will continue their collaboration to share their experiences and expertise to groom football culture and develop their football leagues.
The partnership, which will renew on January 1, 2024, will focus on expanding the horizons on topics like esports, match day preparation, academic training, women’s football, and the fight against racism and other types of discrimination. The pact will also include training of players and coaches, advice on audiovisual production, or sessions on economic control and its implementation.
Just for the ongoing season, LALIGA and K League clubs have taken part in training camps in Spain, where young teams from FC Seoul, Jeonbuk Hyundai, and Ulsan Hyundai have faced off against lower division teams from clubs like Atlético de Madrid, Leganés, Rayo Vallecano, and Getafe.
Through this extension, executives from every K League club travelled to Spain to gain firsthand knowledge of the operations of clubs like FC Barcelona, Valencia CF, RCD Espanyol de Barcelona, Villarreal CF, and Atlético de Madrid. As a result, the new agreement placed greater focus on matters like the establishment of the clubs’ internal structures and professional development within the clubs.
Furthermore, two more collaborative sessions are scheduled before the year ends. The first will involve a group of South Korean television executives visiting to gain firsthand knowledge of the technological innovation used in LALIGA broadcasts, and the second will involve LALIGA and club technicians instructing K League coaches.
Oscar Mayo, LALIGA’s Executive Director, said, “We are very pleased with the renewal of our MOU with K LEAGUE. Since we started working together at the end of 2020, we have discovered more and more areas of collaboration and possibilities for joint development and we are convinced that both competitions will be able to benefit from this exchange of knowledge and shared experiences to continue growing.”
Yeon Sang Cho, General Secretary of K League, stated, “We are delighted with the extension of the MOU with LALIGA. In the past three years with LALIGA, K League has made great progress in various fields. Through the reinforced cooperative relationship between the leagues, we look forward to seeing that both leagues will accomplish the key goals and raise our status in world football”.