The financial institution will no longer be the main sponsor of the competition, but will continue to be linked to the clubs’ association
MADRID, 11 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) –
LaLiga and Banco Santander will end the current sponsorship contract that the banking entity has with the competition since the 2016-17 season at the end of the next 2022-23 academic year, as announced by the clubs association in a statement.
This decision is due to the search for “new forms of collaboration” both in common and with third parties. In this sense, LaLiga will announce in the coming weeks the news that affect the competition from the 2023-24 season.
In these six seasons of alliance, a relationship has been built between LaLiga and Banco Santander that has transcended the official sponsorship of the competition, as projects such as LaLiga Promises (under-12 football) or the main sponsorship of the LaLiga competition have been promoted .
One of the most iconic projects of this collaboration is LaLiga Genuine Santander. Banco Santander, which has been one of the main driving forces behind this initiative that began in 2017-18, and LaLiga are working together on a model to continue sponsoring this competition, which has meant that LaLiga, together with its Foundation, is the first league of professional soccer in the world that has a competition for soccer players with intellectual disabilities.
The president of LaLiga, Javier Tebas, thanked the “trust” that Santander has placed in the employers during these years. “We are convinced that we will continue to collaborate on future projects with Banco Santander for the growth and promotion of both brands,” he said.
For his part, the regional manager for Europe and CEO of Santander Spain, Antonio Simoes, declared himself “delighted” with the collaboration with LaLiga over all these years and encouraged to “explore other avenues of collaboration”.
Both entities have achieved achievements that go beyond advertising presence and have led to strategic national and international development projects such as LaLiga Global Network, which allowed LaLiga, in collaboration with Banco Santander and Universia, to take the step definitive in its internationalization with the creation of the network of delegates that currently has 44 professionals in 41 international markets.
Education has been another of the pillars in the relationship between LaLiga and Banco Santander, which joined forces with LaLiga ProPlayer to promote university education and the creation of sports scholarships in the US for players from lower categories, as well as the creation in 2021 of the program training for active professional soccer players. In this way, LaLiga Business School’s Global Players Program was the first of its kind among the major European leagues to have had the presence of 30 players in its first edition.
In entertainment and digital development, Banco Santander’s support for eLaLiga, the LaLiga eSports competition, stands out, as well as the Santander Football Quiz, the application developed jointly to entertain, test and reward LaLiga Santander fans on a weekly basis.
Likewise, during the pandemic period, and despite the fact that football competition had to be suspended for a while, LaLiga and Banco Santander joined forces to continue entertaining fans and launched #LaLigaSantanderFest, an online festival in which half Hundreds of artists and soccer players met to raise funds against COVID-19.
The social awareness of both entities has marked the association in recent seasons with other projects such as ‘Hunger to 0’, collaborations with the Food Bank or economic contributions to national and international projects of the LaLiga Foundation for the most disadvantaged.
“The 2022-23 season will therefore be the last season of collaboration as the main sponsor of the competition and both entities have expressed their commitment to face it with the same dedication and predisposition to get the most out of sponsorship and contribute to achieving the objectives of growth of both”, concludes the note.