October 2 – LaLiga has signed a multi-year consultancy agreement with the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Chad with the aim of rebuilding the country’s football structures, from the identification and training of talent to the reform of the league and the creation of a new national academy.
The Chadian Football Association is still in the process of rebuilding after being suspended by FIFA in 2021 after government authorities stripped it of its powers and took control of its headquarters. The suspension was lifted later that year, but FIFA and CAF subsequently installed a normalization committee after identifying problems with the federation’s statutes and its ability to hold elections properly.
The long period of disruption ended with the election of Tahir Oloy Hassan as president of the federation in March 2025. His program included reforming the governance of the competition, regional leagues, coaching training and national teams, some of the same areas that now sit within LaLiga’s mandate.
In the first phase, LaLiga will help run a national talent identification program, develop a player tracking system, advise on the planned National Academy and provide training to coaches, managers and sports administrators.
Perhaps most importantly, he will also conduct a strategic review of Chad’s national league and make recommendations on how it should be restructured and developed.
Chad only returned to the national championship format in 2025/26, when a 12-club national league replaced the previous end-of-season championship play-off model.
The Minister of Youth and Sports, Naïr Abakar, said: “Our ambition for Chadian football is to provide our young players with the right environment to develop, allow our clubs to grow and make our league more competitive. We have chosen this partnership with LALIGA to help achieve this ambition. It combines the recognized experience in professional football with the local knowledge and commitment of our football community that we want to build one more player, that we want the results to be seen in the community. the professional career, the work of the coaches and the day-to-day life of our clubs”.
The next step is to get the National Academy up and running, standardize development processes and implement the league’s recommendations.
It is the first consulting project of this type for LaLiga in sub-Saharan Africa. The Spanish league says it has now worked on more than 1,000 sports projects in 60 countries since 2015.
The president of LaLiga, Javier Tebas, said: “LaLiga is delighted to be able to support Chad in this project. The consulting projects we carry out in different parts of the world allow us to share our knowledge and methodology, always working side by side with local institutions and professionals and adapting to the particularities of each country. With this collaboration we want to contribute to generating knowledge, capabilities and tools that can be developed sustainably over time.”
The deal also comes during LaLiga’s wider push into Africa. DAZN now distributes its matches in 48 sub-Saharan African markets under a three-season rights deal that will run until 2028/29, although the Chadian consultancy is separate from that commercial deal.
Chad is currently 183rd in the FIFA men’s world rankings, giving the development program a platform to leave something behind once the consultants have left.
Trésor Penku, General Manager of LaLiga in Africa, said: “This collaboration represents an opportunity to put LaLiga’s knowledge and experience at the service of football development in Chad, working alongside local institutions and professionals to build solid and sustainable foundations.
“We want to support this process from a comprehensive perspective, combining talent, training, methodology and strengthening local capacities, so that the knowledge acquired remains within the country’s football ecosystem and contributes to its long-term development.”
Contact the writer of this story, Harry Ewing, at (email protected)
