India and the growth of the country over the last few years was the biggest incentive in maintaining close connection with the nation for Spain, according to LaLiga's Managing Director Jose Antonio Cachaza, who spoke to Sports Tak in an exclusive interview.
LaLiga, which is the branch of Spain that manages the highest tier of football in the country, recently launched its special Spanish-Hindi football dictionary at the Residence of the Embassy of Spain in Delhi on March 27. The dictionary was given to the Ambassador of Spain to India, Jose Maria Ridao, by Oscar Pujol, who is the director of the Instituto Cervantes in Delhi and Cachaza.
Speaking to Sports Tak, Cachaza revealed that the decision to play in India was not based on football, but more about how much the country had been growing in recent years. "Our decision was not motivated by Asian countries are most popular in Spain; we have offices in 10 countries and delegates in 40 others. This is more about going through a market approach rather than a football-only approach. India is a growing country so it makes a lot of sense," he said.
The dictionary is the second of the kind that was released by the LaLiga, after the unveiling of the Spanish-Bengali football dictionary in February. The main hope of such a dictionary is to deepen the connections within existing fanbases and also address language barriers.
In addition to a wide range of information about both LaLiga clubs, the dictionary also includes sporting milestones, football actions, as well as a wide range of football terminology. Furthermore, these dictionaries will also offer social vocabulary and conversation guidelines to facilitate public interactions.
“As football serves as a shared passion between our countries, leveraging this unifying factor to establish a foundation for which the dictionary will be able to build further is the vision. By dismantling existing linguistic barriers, the Hindi dictionary will be better enabled to scale impact across the country due to its broader reach. As we continue to build upon our vision for Indian football, the dictionary will assist in broader cultural relationships,” he said during the press conference.
Meanwhile, in the exclusive conversation, Cachaza also shared LaLiga's strong approach towards racism. "As a society, we need to act on the issues of racism together. At LaLiga, we cannot do much more. Not only with Vinicius, but we have also been doing this for years. All that we can do is report to the authorities. The public needs to know that the people who want to bring hatred and other kinds of discrimination to the sport should be out."
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