Spain’s La Liga has announced a partnership with Nigerian stakeholders to start a high-performance academy to help develop grassroots football in the African country.

La Liga and Legacy Sports, which owns the rights to the league’s marketing and advertising in Nigeria, held a press conference on Tuesday in Lagos, Nigeria.

President of Legacy Sports, Philip Diwan, revealed plans to develop a high-performance academy in Nigeria in which players will be schooled by coaches from Spain, with courses also set to focus on the development of players’ education and character.

Diwan revealed three La Liga events to be held in Nigeria before the end of the year.

Plans are underway to organise a tour of the La Liga trophy across Nigeria, to share among fans and players. There will be a grand viewing of El Clasico, where up to 10,000 fans will be given an opportunity to watch the game together with a few La Liga ambassadors.

There will also be a La Liga legends match against Nigerian legends, which will also be played on Nigerian soil.

Director general of La Liga, Vicente Casado, while responding to questions from KweséESPN on the possibility of exchange programmes involving players between La Liga clubs and their NPFL counterparts, responded in the affirmative.

“Yes off course. Now with the likes of the Barcelona academy and La Liga present in Nigeria, we will do more exchanges, I am sure,” he said.

“Nigeria is a nation filled with talented players. La Liga is a more technically and tactically oriented league in comparison to other major European leagues.

“For the grassroots players to stand a chance of plying their trade in Spain, we need to develop the academies here, better competition between the kids, develop quality playing pitches in Nigeria where the kids can harness their skills which will aid them in playing tiki-taka.

“All of these are important in the development of the players and we see Legacy Sports and the League Management Company as partners in helping us to achieve our set goals,” an elated Casado concluded.

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