Chad and LaLiga sign a multi-year plan in Madrid to professionalize its football
The Chadian Football Association (FTFA) and LaLiga, the organizer of the Spanish championship, signed a multi-year partnership on October 1, 2026, at the league's Madrid headquarters aimed at professionalizing Chadian football. Minister of Youth and Sports Naïr Abakar signed on behalf of Chad, alongside LaLiga President Javier Tebas, reports Africa Soccer. FTFA President Tahir Oloy Hassan was also in attendance, according to Tchadinfos.
What the agreement entails
According to Africa Soccer, the agreement covers a national talent scouting campaign, the implementation of a player tracking system, the design and technical support for a national football academy, as well as the training of coaches, club executives, and sports administrators. LaLiga is also set to conduct an assessment of the Chadian championship and provide recommendations for its structure.
Tchadinfos further mentions the training of young managers in Spain, immersion stays for young Chadians, the placement of players in Spanish clubs, and a marketing component. The Spanish league states that it has carried out more than 1,000 sports projects in 60 countries since 2015.
The gray areas
Neither the exact duration of the partnership nor its funding has been made public: the agreement is presented as multi-year, with no budget or quantified timeline communicated. For a Chadian championship that primarily suffers from a lack of pitches, trained referees, and clubs capable of paying their players, the essential work will therefore lie in the implementation, not the signing.
This is the recurring limitation of these alliances between African federations and European leagues: they promise expertise, but can also end up merely opening a pipeline for talent export. The text signed in Madrid has the merit of explicitly mentioning the national academy and the structuring of the local championship, which is to say, what remains in the country.
The FTFA frames the agreement within a narrative of reconstruction: the federation sees it as proof that its reform is advancing through strategic partnerships. Chad, which has never competed in an Africa Cup of Nations final tournament, is playing a long-term hand here: building at home what it has always lacked until now.
This article was written in French with the help of artificial intelligence from the sources cited below, then translated from French automatically. Read the original.
