La Liga is exploring ways of enhancing and increasing cooperation with the Indian Super League (ISL), the country’s premier football competition. For this purpose, it has also held discussions recently with FSDL (Football Sports Development Limited) CEO Martin Bain.

“We keep in touch with both AIFF (All India Football Federation) as well as the ISL officials. I spoke recently to the (FDSL) CEO and had discussions with him.
“I can’t reveal much about our discussions, but it was mainly about trying to find ways of increasing cooperation between La Liga and the ISL,” Jose Antonio Cachaza, managing director, La Liga India, told The Telegraph at a city hotel on Friday.

“We’re celebrating our first five years in India and at the heart of our strategy is increasing our connection with the fans here. That’s what we’ll keep doing, and we’re looking to find new ways to keep getting our clubs and players closer to the Indian fans. We have a good fanbase in India already.
“Besides, we came out of two years where nothing practically happened because of the pandemic. Hopefully, this Covid nightmare is over and we can get down to real business,” Cachaza said.

Some of the La Liga clubs have also shown interest in the I-League teams. Especially, Sevilla, which went into a tie-up with Bengaluru United early in 2021.

Pre-season
The Spanish league is also working on bringing two of their clubs to India for a pre-season game in 2023. “Next year, having one pre-season game is a possibility and we’ll work towards it. It certainly is an important part of our strategy to bring more La Liga teams to India,” Cachaza pointed out.

Explaining why organising a pre-season game in India wouldn’t be possible this season, he added: “For this season, bringing teams here makes no sense because nobody will take the risk of getting into a big event when there’s no guarantee that you will not again have any limitation on (crowd) attendance. “So being a businessperson or a promoter, you would want to play as safe as possible.”