Javier Otazu
New York, March 4. Villarreal, a side that made their debut in the first division only 25 years ago and now rub shoulders with Europe’s greats, want to position themselves in the promising future of football in the United States, a country which has the next Cup. of the world in front of him. , and For this, it has the best lever: its academies.
According to what Juan Antón de Salas, Villarreal’s commercial director visiting the United States, told EFE, the country is now one of the most important in the club’s commercial strategy, because this sport is “in full growth”. and has real potential. for the country to become a “great power in football”.
Villarreal has created fourteen academies in North America since 2017: 9 in the United States, 4 in Canada and one in Mexico (the three co-host countries of the 2026 World Cup), some centers – he specifies – which “are under our direct supervision”. because we don’t license schools,” even though they still rely on a local partner.
These fourteen academies currently have 9,000 children who are learning football with what De Salas calls “a holistic perspective”: in these schools – he explains – the club wants to teach something more than just sport: how to interact in their daily life and with their family, or even change their eating habits.
“If this school works and we do things right, it will develop a bond with the community, generate affection for Villarreal and create a permanent legacy,” says De Salas, knowing that in the United States the idea of “community impact” is the one that guarantees guaranteed applause.
In these academies that the club has founded in places as diverse as Dallas, Nebraska, Utah, Virginia or Las Vegas, Villarreal does not seek “a simple presence, but a long-term opportunity”, based on a project generation of talent that allows them to remember throughout their lives that Villarreal “taught them to play and even marked a moment in their lives”.
De Salas points out that in the six years since the club put ‘its pike’ in the United States, he has seen how football has had an ‘outrageous’ impact, with the creation of teams, schools and leagues, and Villarreal want to be there: according to De Santos, citing data from La Liga, football is one of the most popular sports among 17-year-old boys, who will be 20 or 21 years in the World Cup.
A DIVERSIFIED INTERNATIONAL STRATEGY
While the Castellón club has opted for academies mainly in the Anglo-Saxon world (it also has three schools in Australia), other strategies include sponsorship by other clubs or consultancy projects currently underway in Angola and in Hungary.
In both countries, Villarreal has partnered with top division clubs in their leagues to advise them on issues as diverse as stadium management and marketing policies, an idea that still has a long way to go given the globalization of football and business prospects.
This foreign strategy has allowed the club to charge an additional €4m which contributes to what De Salas calls ‘a 100% sustainable budget’ and which the previous year amounted to €140m.
THE LATIN CONNECTION AND THE CENTENARY
The club celebrates this year the centenary of its foundation and prepares the festivities of this month of March, the culmination of which will be the “legends match”, a friendly match in which names such as Diego Forlán, Marcos Senna, Bruno Soriano, Xisco Nadal, Héctor Font, Gonzalo Rodríguez, Roberto Pires and Joan Capdevila.
Forlán’s name, along with that of current Argentine players Juan Foyth or Giovanny Lo Celso, allows the club to boast a “Latin connection” which opens many doors for them in America, De Salas acknowledges, as it allows them to to be “highly recognized”. ECE
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