LaLiga to host football clinics and coaching workshops in South Africa

LaLiga, Spain’s top professional league, is passionate about football and is continuously looking for ways to grow the beautiful game through various partnerships. LaLiga’s most recent achievement in South African football is thanks now to its partnership with IberCup South Africa.

LaLiga has developed sports projects all around the world, from El Salvador to China through the US or their camps in Egypt and the High Performance Center in Dubai. Its players and coaches are worldwide recognized amongst the best and now they´ll share their know-how with South Africa.

IberCup has a longstanding success story of making young football players’ dreams a reality across the globe. As one of the largest international youth football tournaments in the world, it offers players the opportunity to play against the best football academy clubs in different international locations.

LaLiga has announced the new partnership with IberCup at an event held on 14 April 2021 in Sandton, Johannesburg. MC’d by presenter and musician Robot Boii, attendees including former Bafana Bafana players Brian Baloyi and Naughty Mokoena were excited to hear about the plans to host a variety of football clinics in Joburg in 2021.

Through the clinics, it’s expected that a total of 180 young football enthusiasts (from U10 to U18) will get the chance to be trained by LaLiga coaches.

Additionally, 60 local coaches will also get the chance to attend a workshop to train and improve their skills.

Following the event, Marcos Pelegrin, LaLiga Southern Africa Managing Director, said, “LaLiga is proud to contribute to football’s legacy in South Africa. We have embarked on many initiatives to develop the sport in South Africa, and we are very pleased to have another opportunity to not only shape the growth of young players and coaches, but also build a relationship with IberCup that can accelerate local players’ skills even further.”

Michael Bender, CEO of IberCup South Africa, added to this, saying, “We’re very excited about this partnership and the opportunity to create platforms of recognition for young football players in South Africa to develop to their full potential. More importantly is the fact that with this football partnership, we can contribute to building a better society for our youth. We know South Africa has huge potential and, with projects like this, we establish a foothold as a country to compete on the international stage and to host more youth football events in the future. It is our dream to see our players compete against, and play for some of the biggest international clubs in the coming years, and together with LaLiga this can become a reality.”

With IberCup being a recognised association that has hosted the world’s best talent, this partnership is a great opportunity for South African football development while also giving LaLiga a chance to continue sharing its love of football and valuable knowledge with fans and coaches.