In an hour-and-a-half presentation on what’s new for next season, LaLiga, the organization responsible for Spanish football, spoke of its new logo, new graphic presentations on broadcasts and partnerships with EA Sports and Netflix, but did not mention racism once.
The event this Monday (3), to which dozens of journalists and representatives of all clubs that are part of the entity were invited, failed to mention what, just 45 days ago, led to a huge crisis in the league and in football in the country.
After the Brazilian player Vinicius Junior was called a monkey by a noisy crowd in a game in Valencia, the subject was commented by the prime minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, by the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and made Spain discuss whether it is or not a racist country.
At the end of the event, the Sheet asked LaLiga president Javier Tebas how the organization was preparing to tackle racism in the new season. “We went to court nine times and to the Public Ministry in the last two years. What nobody did, right? But this year we want to do some special themes in the stadiums, mainly with racism in general and with Vinicius Junior too”, said the top hat .
“And we are going to have some very special topics, which I cannot comment on very publicly, to try to control these 10, 20, 30 who make these racist insults, so that they do not do it and do not return to stadiums.”
After the controversy involving the Brazilian, LaLiga announced that it asked for powers to punish clubs whose fans manifest themselves in a racist way. “We asked, but we’re waiting. But, look, if we don’t have powers, we’ll do everything we can and we know how to strategize to avoid those screams, I think we’ll make it even if we don’t have those powers,” he said.
The presentation sought to mark a moment of change. “A new era begins” and “Not a change of symbols, but a symbol of change” were the marketing slogans repeated over and over again by the presenters.
The entity changed its logo and the typography used to write its name. “We no longer write LaLiga with lowercase letters, because it’s not meant to be whispered. LaLiga is meant to be shouted, so now we only use capital letters”, clarified one of the publicists involved in the new guise.
A partnership with EA Sports, which produces the FIFA video game, changed the name of the first division championship, now called LaLiga EA Sports, as well as the second, LaLiga Hypermotion, the latter being the name of a technology used in consoles. Until this year, the divisions were called LaLiga Santander and LaLiga SmartBank.
The partnership will also inspire TV broadcasts, with the animations displayed on the screen — to show whether an athlete is offside or the curve of the ball on a free kick — approaching the visuals used in EA Sports video games.
Netflix said it would make a documentary series about this year’s championship, similar to what it did with Formula 1 in the series “Drive to Survive”. New mobile applications and the latest version of the Puma Orbita ball for the 2023/24 season were presented.
Finally, an agreement between 14 first division clubs was announced so that tickets for visiting fans do not exceed € 30 (R$ 158) during the season.
