YouTuber Ibai Llanos has announced a 20-team FIFA tournament, featuring players from every La Liga Santander club, starting this weekend.
As COVID-19 continues to postpone sporting competitions, many clubs and players have turned to esports to garner fan engagement. This has resulted in countless new esport invitationals such as Leyton Orient’s ‘Ultimate Quaren-Team Cup’ and NASCAR’s esports pro-series. With this announcement, it now seems that La Liga footballers are now ready to enter the virtual world.
Llanos tweeted: “It hasn’t been 24 hours since I put the tweet out and we already have all 20 top teams confirmed. This Thursday will have the draw, [then] Friday, Saturday and Sunday the tournament.
“It’s going to get messy, it’s going to get really messy.”
Barcelona’s Sergi Roberto and Real Madrid’s Marco Asensio are among the list of players announced for the unnamed tournament, which comes after the success of the virtual Seville derby played between last Sunday through Twitch.
The virtual Seville derby helped raise proceeds in the fight against the coronavirus and it is expected that the LaLiga tournament will also be used to support those affected.
The full list of players competing in the competition includes:
Sergi Roberto, Marco Asensio, Sergio Reguilon, Adnan Januzaj, Jason Remeseiro, Marcos Llorente, Carlos Soler, Manu Morlanes, Jose Antonio Martinez, Gorka Guruzeta, Ruben Garcia, Borja Iglesias, Carlos Clerc, Lucas Perez, Pedro Porro, Edu Exposito, Kevin Vazquez, Alex Pozo, Aitor Ruibal, Adri Embarba.
Insider insight: Gaming tournaments like what Llanos and Leyton Orient have organised will only continue to increase footballing brands throughout the undeniably difficult situation. While financially these clubs will not benefit from participating in fan engagement events, they will be able to create strong identities which could in turn help them secure sponsorships in the future.