Spanish multinational financial services company, Banco Santander, will cease to be the main sponsor of LaLaiga, but will continue to be involved in it, sportbusinessbrand.com can reveal.
In the coming weeks, LaLiga will announce important new developments for the 2023/24 season and beyond.
The termination of the current sponsorship contract that the bank has had with the competition since the 2016/2017 season is due to mutual agreement. The change, which will take effect from the 2023/2024
During these six seasons of collaboration, the relationship between LaLiga and Banco Santander has transcended mere official sponsorship of the competition. It has been a period of close collaboration between the two institutions, with strong understanding and rapport that has fomented the promotion of successful joint projects such as LaLiga Promises (U12 football) in addition to main sponsorship of the LaLiga competition.
One of the most iconic products of this collaboration is undoubtedly LaLiga Genuine Santander, the competition for players with learning disabilities. So much so that Banco Santander, which has been one of the main driving forces behind this initiative since its inception in the 2017/18 season, 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 professional football league in the world to have a competition for footballers with learning disabilities.
LaLiga president. Javier Tebas. said: “We thank you for the trust you have placed in LaLiga over the years, and we are convinced that we will continue to collaborate on future projects with Banco Santander in order to grow and promote both brands.”
Antonio Simõe,s Regional Head of Europe and CEO of Santander Spain, added: “We are delighted with our partnership with LaLiga over the years and are keen to explore further avenues of collaboration.”
Both organisations have developed a close and fruitful relationship during the six seasons of collaboration, with great achievements that go beyond just advertising presence, involving strategic national and international development projects, in digital environments and at an observable level for football fans.
It is worth highlighting initiatives such as the LaLiga Global Network, which allowed LaLiga, in collaboration with Banco Santander and Universia, to take the decisive step in its internationalisation with the creation of the network of LaLiga Global Network delegates, which currently has a total of 44professionals present in 41 markets across the world.
Education has been another pillar of the relationship between LaLiga and Banco Santander, joining forces to create LaLiga ProPlayer and to promote university education and in the creation of sports scholarships in the USA for players in lower categories, as well as the creation of a training programme for active professional footballers in 2021. LaLiga Business School & Global Players Program was the first of its kind among major European leagues and was attended by 30 players in its first edition.
In terms of entertainment and digital development, Banco Santander has provided strong support for eLaLiga, LaLiga's eSports competition, as well as the Santander Football Quiz, an application jointly developed to entertain, test and reward LaLiga Santander fans week after week. These projects allowed the bank and LaLiga to connect with a wider community and a younger audience, both key to their business objectives.
During the pandemic, when football competition was temporarily suspended, LaLiga and Banco Santander joined forces to continue entertaining fans and launched #LaLigaSantanderFest, an online festival in which 50 artists and footballers came together to raise funds for the fight against Covid-19.
Social awareness has characterised the partnership between the two institutions in recent seasons, leading to a host of other projects such as ‘Hambre a 0’, collaborations with the Food Bank (Banco de Alimentos) and financial contributions to national and international projects run by the LaLiga Foundation for underprivileged people across society.
The 2022/23 season will be the final season of collaboration as the main sponsor of the competition and both organisations have expressed their commitment to continue in the same line and with the same dedication to maximise the benefits of the sponsorship and contribute to achieving mutual growth objectives.
About LaLiga
LaLiga is a global, innovative and socially responsible organisation which is a leader in the leisure and entertainment sector. It is a private sports association composed of the 20 public limited sports companies (SADs) and clubs of LaLiga Santander and the
22 of LaLiga SmartBank, and is responsible for organising professional football competitions in Spain. LaLiga is the football competition with the most social media followers in the world, with over 150 million followers across 17 platforms in 20 different
languages. With its headquarters in Madrid (Spain), it is present in 41 countries through eleven offices and 44 delegates. The organisation carries out its social work through its Foundation and was the world's first professional football league to establish a league for intellectually challenged footballers: LaLiga Genuine Santander.
About Banco Santander
Banco Santander (SAN SM, STD US, BNC LN) is a leading commercial bank founded in 1857 and headquartered in Spain. It has a significant presence in 10 key markets in Europe, North and South America and is one of the world's largest banks by market capitalisation.
Santander aspires to be the best open financial services platform for individuals, SMEs, companies, financial institutions and governments, and its mission is to help people and businesses prosper in a simple, personal and fair way. Santander is building a more responsible bank and has set itself several goals, including facilitating more than €120 billion in green finance from 2019 to 2025, as well as financially empowering more than 10 million people over the same period. At the end of the first quarter of 2022, Banco Santander had €1.2 trillion in total customer funds, 155 million customers, of which 26 million are loyal and 49 million are digital, 9,900 branches