Spanish football premier division La Liga held its first talent detection camp at the Olympic Academy in Tehran on February 21-23.
In a press release sent by Irancell, an Iranian telecommunications company, to Financial Tribune, the agent of the Spanish football league held the session with 90 children and young adults present at the event.
The former Barcelona and Valencia midfielder, Gaizka Mendieta, 43, served as the agent for La Liga.
Iran’s former and current players of Team Melli attended the event. Omid Nourafkan, Mohammad Ansari, Shayan Mosleh, Mohsen Bengar and Reza Shahroudi represented the Iran football society.
The detected talents were categorized into three age groups and received primary and technical training for three days. The talents also received La Liga official License.
The process of choosing among the young talents took place by using LENZ media platform by sending the videos of the talented youth and eliciting those with higher skills by football experts namely, former Persepolis player Mohsen Khalili and German-based Iranian football coach Alireza Marzban.
Irancell had signed an agreement with La Liga last December to access the high quality media and videos of La Liga matches which are popular among Iranian youth. The two sides also agreed to hold talent detection camps in Iran.
Other detection camps are expected in the spring (March-June.
La Liga is the top professional association football division of the Spanish football league system.
Administrated by the Liga de Fútbol Profesional, La Liga is contested by 20 teams, with the three lowest-placed teams relegated to the Segunda División and replaced by the top two teams in that division plus the winner of a play-off.
La Liga is one of the most popular professional sports leagues in the world, with an average attendance of 26,741 for league matches in the 2014–15 season. This is the sixth-highest of any domestic professional sports league in the world and the fourth-highest of any professional association football league in the world, behind the Bundesliga, the Premier League and the Indian Super League.
