Club president says 'Seville FC is open to the world' ahead of Al-Ittihad clash
Dubai: La Liga side Sevilla will take on Saudi Arabian side Al Ittihad on Friday night in the annual Antonio Puerta Trophy, part of both teams' pre-season preparations.
Arab News spoke to Sevilla president Jose Maria del Nido Carrasco about the clash with Al Ittihad and the state of Saudi football.
Here are some of his comments.
On the idea behind the Antonio Puerta trophy…
Antonio Poerta is one of the greatest legends of our club. He played a key role in our first Europa League title in 2006 and many more in the months that followed. His passing is a big loss for the club and for the fans. That's why we honour him with this game every year. We always try to invite top teams to pay our full respect to him.
Regarding playing against Al-Ittihad in the 2024 match…
We are in the pre-season preparation phase and I believe that on July 26th we will have completed 20 days of training since we started training on July 6th. We look forward to continuing training, following the new coach's style of play. We aim to give Sevilla fans a chance to enjoy the games, to gain a competitive advantage and for us football lovers to start seeing what Sevilla will be like next season.
About the Saudi Pro League project…
The growth of the Saudi Pro League is very interesting for a club like Sevilla FC, where part of our business model is based on selling players to generate profits that allow us to invest. It is important that emerging markets are willing to invest. It is important now that they maintain that level of investment, build a solid structure in the club, professionalize all aspects and invest in youth formation so that local players can develop technically.
Regarding Seville’s participation in the World Cup summit in Jeddah last December…
Our experience at the Summit was very positive, our club members witnessed first-hand the development of football in Saudi Arabia and we were able to expand our network of contacts in the region to build further partnerships and collaborations.
Relations between Sevilla and Saudi Arabia …
We have traveled to Saudi Arabia on several occasions, our Head of Artificial Intelligence, Elias Zamora, visited here to demonstrate the tools that we have and can offer to the football market in general and to Saudi Arabia in particular. Also, through our sports management we are able to share a lot of knowledge, our transfer policy and our surveillance policy, which have been recognized in the last few years and further improved by artificial intelligence. We aim to create a relationship where we can learn from them and they can learn from Sevilla FC.
Exporting Sevilla’s famous spying methods…
At the beginning of the 21st century, we started implementing a recruitment policy that allowed us to find players unknown to the market. These players came to Sevilla FC, we utilized their performances, achieved sporting success in the form of national and European championships, and then we sold them, generating a huge profit that we reinvested in signing new players. As this practice became more widespread in football, we introduced a new factor: artificial intelligence. This knowledge of the sport can be offered to the Arab market, giving them the potential to have an effective player buying and selling policy through artificial intelligence and individual club recruitment.
In building Sevilla’s global relationships…
Sevilla FC is a club open to fans all over the world. Our international expansion plans aim to expand our fan base all over the world and to achieve this we need to continue to build relationships with clubs from different regions. We are also open to playing away against other clubs if the opportunity arises.
