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TUE 16 NOV 2021 | GLOBAL GROWTH
LaLiga picks up best in-house legal team accolade
LaLiga picks up best in-house legal team accolade
  • Specialisation and ongoing training are the keys to success for an in-house team who have managed to adapt successfully to the growing complexity of the sector, especially following the centralisation of audiovisual rights in 2015.
  • The work of the department has been recognised in the face of challenges such as the vertiginous growth of LaLiga, internationalisation, digitalisation, anti-piracy, data and new entertainment models. 

LaLiga has received the Gold Award for the best in-house legal team in the telecommunications and media sector, one of the 15 categories of the awards given out annually by Iberian Lawyers recognising the excellence of in-house teams of lawyers and compliance officers in the areas of legal, tax, HR and financial affairs. The award was presented on 4 November at the ceremony held at the Wellington Hotel and attended by eminent professionals from the legal world in Spain and Portugal.

LaLiga's legal department is highly specialised and includes 16 lawyers and 2 documentalists with training in areas as wide-ranging as mercantile, financial, procedural, criminal, competition, sports and tax law. The vertiginous growth of the organisation, which has gone from around 50 to some 600 employees in 41 countries in less than a decade demands no less. The association is now a digital entertainment multinational with operations in highly complex legal domains which demand highly skilled professionals with extensive experience in a variety of sectors and who can tackle issues ranging from international commercial contracts to support for the process of marketing audiovisual rights with national and international broadcasters and industrial property protection.

"The current telecommunications and media sector landscape, as well as the increasingly professionalised world of football, requires ongoing training and constant updating, which has been key to tackling the challenges of internationalisation, digitalisation, audiovisual marketing and growth in recent years," assures Maria Jose Lopez, the director of LaLiga's legal department.

Challenges and the future: internationalisation, technology, digitalisation and anti-piracy

The complexity of the telecommunications and media sector has increased over the past decade, demanding increasing numbers of highly specialised professionals in a wide range of areas. LaLiga's legal department has grown in parallel to adapt to a fast-changing environment, with the turning point occurring in 2015 with the centralisation of audiovisual rights. 

The team relies on a highly innovative approach to their work. On the one hand, in the audiovisual sphere it is necessary to support the marketing of television rights in a way that differs from more traditional practices and adapts to the entry of new players in the market and their content distribution methods. 

On the other hand, due to the digitalisation of the company, LaLiga has become a technological benchmark in the sports sector, which has required the legal department to cover important issues in intellectual and industrial property law with great technical complexity. Another important area of work for the legal team in recent years has been the fight against piracy, where milestones have been achieved that have brought LaLiga to the forefront in the anti-piracy crusade. New digital entertainment models, such as the LaLigaSportsTV OTT platform and the marketing of NFTs, are also being tackled from a legal standpoint.

Additionally, LaLiga's internationalisation has been, and will continue to be, one of the most important pillars of its commercial strategy. Consequently, the legal team needs to meet the needs of the entire group in a highly changeable multi-jurisdictional environment. 

Furthermore, the different M&A (mergers and acquisitions) operations carried out by LaLiga have been particularly important in the past year, leading to the incorporation of significant national and international partners for the long-term growth of the company, as well as the support for the different financing projects together with the clubs developed in recent years.

On the other hand, the department also promotes ongoing training through its collaboration with the LaLiga FOUNDATION and with the LaLiga Business School. 

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