Spanish BBVA Primera Liga team Real Madrid this Tuesday signed an agreement with a Singapore-based soccer events company - Centurian.
The agreement has been reached as the club aims to increase its Asian fanbase and make further inroads into what in Spain is viewed as a lucrative market which so far has evaded Spanish clubs.
Real Madrid will now look into the possbility of establishing a football academy in Singapore with some young players having the chance to travel to Spain to work at Madrid' s Valdebebas training facility.
The Spanish club may now try include a visit to Singapore among the destinations of its summer tour.
Although the dates and rivals have yet to be made concrete, Real Madrid have confirmed that they will be visiting Asia this summer for the first time since 2005.
"We've been talking to our partner here, Centurion, about the chance to play in Singapore," Real's international sponsorship manager Alfonso Roberes De Cominges told Channel News Asia on Monday.
"And not only to play a match but also to run different activities related to football through Centurion, as academies, as camps and as clinics, and also to strengthen our relationships with all the football clubs as well in Singapore," he commented.
This Monday saw Real Madrid lend its image to a new campaign to promote tourism to Spain and the Spanish capital. Under the motto, "Visit Spain - Visit Madrid," the Spanish football side, which has a reported 294,000 fans worldwide, is seen as one of the big attractions of the Spanish capital.
At the event the Spanish Minister for Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Miguel Sebastian, highlighted the importance of the Asian and especially China. He said Spain hopes to entice 300,000 Chinese people to visit Spain in 2012 and a million in 2020.
