SEVILLA FC VISIT INDIA TO CONSOLIDATE THEIR COMMITMENT TO TECHNOLOGY AND THEIR LINK WITH BENGALURU

After signing an agreement at the start of 2021, and following on from FC Bengaluru United's first visits to Seville in March, a delegation from Sevilla FC, at the highest level, is travelling this week to the Indian city of Bangalore, where they will see first-hand the club's facilities and way of working, as well as presenting their roadmap for this strategic alliance to the Indian press. The delegation consists of the Club President, José Castro, the CEO, José María Cruz, and General Business Manager, Jorge Paradela, and they will have a busy schedule of meetings and events in India, as will the heads of other strategic departments, who are part of the travelling party.

They will arrive early on Tuesday morning, when the first meetings will take place with the FC Bengaluru United leadership. They will then meet the local media on Wednesday, where LaLiga will also be present, as FC Bengaluru United unveil their women's team, a step forward which has also been based on Sevilla FC's experience. On Thursday, the highlight will be a visit to Infosys, a multinational technology company based in Bangalore and one of the most important in the country in the sector, with more than 125,000 employees. On Friday, the Hackathon will be launched before a dinner at the Spanish Embassy, with the presence of the Consul and the Honorary Consul in the city. As for Saturday, the last day of the visit, the Sevilla FC Junior Cup, a development tournament, will take place.

With a population over 1.38 million, India is a huge market for any activity, including sport. Although cricket is the country's number one sport, football is already the second most popular sport in the country. Also, it is estimated that, of the nearly 100 million football fans in the country, 40% have a particular interest in LaLiga. Sevilla FC currently have a remarkable spontaneous brand awareness of 24% and are the fourth club in terms of volume of football news published in the country. This is a very relevant market for some of the club's main sponsors, especially Valvoline. Sevilla FC also set its sights on what they can do, as a leading club in European football, to contribute to the development of football in the country. In that sense, the club can offer Bengaluru United their formula for sporting growth, which has made them one of the European greats this century.

Sevilla officials have an busy five-day agenda in Bangalore

Moreover, within India, it is by no means a coincidence, as Sevilla FC are a club that lead Spanish football in its commitment to technology, research and development, and the use of data. They do so by developing their own technological applications to be as competitive as possible in elite football, in which small differences make the difference to success. Taking the club's vision into account, there is no better place to set up in India than Bangalore, a city known as the Indian Silicon Valley, based on the potential of their technology companies. In fact, the region of which it is the capital city, Karnataka, in the south-west of the country, generated 52 billion euros in exports last year. The amount is similar to the sum of the net profit of the last year of the companies in the Ibex 35, the main Spanish stock market index.

Currently, Sevilla FC currently has 21 professionals dedicated to research and development of technologies that, with the appropriate use of data, provide added value in the work of each department, and not just on the pitch, which is undoubtedly the most important. The club have created their own applications such as AiFootball, for the work of our sporting management; AiScouting, to optimise scouting; AiTracking, for the registration of training rights that players generate for the club; and AiRadar, a tool for the early detection of talent. In fact, there are already European clubs interested in acquiring licences for our applications. Therefore, one of the key points of the agreement with Bengaluru United is to use their great technological experience to study and jointly develop innovative projects in the football world.

As a result, the clubs organised the Hackathon, in which professionals from the sector will share ideas to develop technology in this field. This event will be unveiled specifically during the Sevilla delegation's stay in Bangalore. The aim is to generate the best possible algorithm to effectively visualise the parameters that help to better understand the performance of football players. It is a pioneering football Hackathon, in line with the ultimate goal: to remain extraordinarily competitive in the football world.