Top 34 students from LaLiga Football Schools in the race for the annual LaLiga Football Schools Scholarship

New Delhi, January 28, 2020 – LaLiga, Spain’s top division football league, held the final phase of selection for its annual LaLiga Football Schools Scholarship, through which 2-4 students will be selected to visit Spain for an immersive football experience. At the National Camp, held recently in New Delhi, eight trained coaches judged the 34 players on various aspects to select the best. The winners of the Scholarship will be announced in February 2020.

The Scholarship initiative was launched from the 2018/19 season onwards, in association with the Spanish Embassy in India. The selected students will visit Spain for a period of 10-14 days to receive high quality training from a top Spanish club. The initiative was designed to create of a reward system for LaLiga Football Schools’ students and to provide them with a progression platform for their football dreams.

Eight coaches, including the Technical director – Javier Cabrera, Regional Coordinator from West Zone – Saúl Vazquez Chas and the Senior Specialist in Sports Projects Development – David García Gómez who has especially come from Spain for the National Camp, evaluated the students on the following criteria: technical skill, demonstrated history of progression and strong performance in LaLiga Football Schools, exemplary behaviour, attitude,studies and strong sporting values like commitment, effort, team spirit, respect, teamwork and humbleness.

This year, the 34 players represented seven different cities and six different states, including Delhi, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka. The students hail from different centres of LaLiga’s flagship program, LaLiga Football Schools, which has presence in 14 cities across India. With the primary aim of imparting high quality technical training to students and coaches in the country, LaLiga has undertaken several initiatives under the Football Schools project like the annual Scholarship, Train the Trainer, Training Camps and many more. Since its launch in 2018, LaLiga Football Schools has impacted over 10,000 students across 30+ centres in the country.

Jose Antonio Cachaza, Managing Director, LaLiga India said, “LaLiga Football Schools has been one of our most important projects in India. Over the past 1.5 years, we have made huge strides in making an impact at the grassroots development of the sport and this Scholarship is one step further in that direction. The Scholarship creates a reward opportunity for the young aspiring footballers and then allows the students who visit Spain to circulate their learnings amongst their peers. Last year, four students were selected from India and judging by the potential we saw at the National Camps this year, we foresee an even more impactful return from this initiative.”