By Mark Baber
June 28 – China’s Huawei, a global provider of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), has signed with the Spanish Football League (LFP) as its exclusive Technology Partner for Smartphones.
The two-year contract, extendable for another year, will see Huawei collaborate with the LFP in a number of promotional activities. Interactive content of the LFP will be pre-installed on Huawei mobile phones and Huawei has LFP image rights to produce promotional products.
Walter Ji, CEO of Huawei in Spain and Portugal, said: “We are delighted with the start of this collaboration with the National Professional Soccer League which will certainly boost efforts to get closer to consumers. At Huawei we offer the best devices for demanding users, and this agreement will allow us to reinforce this strategy with the values that represent the football and sport in general.”
The president of the LFP, Javier Tebas, said that the deal with the LFP will help Spanish football promote itself in Asia. “Without doubt, the LFP, with this agreement further enhances its projection in new markets in other continents such as Asia.” The LFP president emphasized the collaborative nature of the project, saying “together wewill promote activities and content development”.
Huawei’s increasing involvement in international sports sponsorships has seen the company agree deals with Eurosport for the dissemination of the major sporting events for the month of July and for sponsorship of the Italian Supercup in Beijing. In Spain, Huawei has sponsored Atletico Madrid for specific league games and for its UEFA Super Cup clash against Chelsea.
The importance of Huawei as a bridge to the Chinese consumer market was underlined as Tebas who said Spanish games may be rescheduled for four in the afternoon on Saturday and Sunday to reach this market.
The deal is a major coup for Huawei who steal one of the world’s biggest football properties from under the noses of one of the world’s biggest telecommunications giants, Telefonica, in their home market.
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