Jose Maria del Nido Carrasco speaks to Arab News about the Antonio Puerta Trophy, his club’s links to Saudi Arabia and football’s development in the Kingdom DUBAI: La Liga club Sevilla on Friday night take on Saudi Pro League side Al-Ittihad in the annual Antonio Puerta Trophy match, which is also part of the pre-season preparations for both teams. Arab News spoke to Sevilla President Jose Maria del Nido Carrasco about the clash with Al-Ittihad and the state of Saudi Arabian football. Here are some of his comments. On the idea behind the Antonio Puerta Trophy … Antonio Puerta is one of the biggest legends of our club. He was key in the first Europa League title we won in 2006 and in the ones that followed in the subsequent months. His passing was a hard blow for the club and the fans, which is why we honour him every year with this match. We always try to invite high-level teams to offer him the best possible tribute. On playing Al-Ittihad in the 2024 edition … We are in the middle of the preseason preparing the team. I believe that by that day, the 26th, we will have had 20 days of training since we started on July 6. We want to continue training, implementing the game model of our new coach. We expect Sevilla fans to enjoy a good match, ensure competitiveness, and let all of us who love football start to see what Sevilla will be like in the upcoming season. On the Saudi Pro League project … The growth of the Saudi Pro League is very interesting. For clubs like Sevilla FC, where part of our business model is based on selling players to generate profits that allow us to make new investments, it is important to have emerging markets willing to invest. The key now is for them to maintain that level of investment, build solid structures in the clubs, professionalize all areas, and invest in formation for youth teams to allow also a technical improvement in local players. On Sevilla’s attendance at the World Football Summit in Jeddah last December … Our experience at this summit was very positive. Different members of our club were able to see firsthand how football is developing in Saudi Arabia, and we can expand our network of contacts in the region to continue generating alliances and synergies. On Sevilla’s ties with Saudi Arabia … We have had different trips to Saudi Arabia. Our head of artificial intelligence, Elías Zamora, visited to showcase the tools we have and can offer to the general football market and specifically to Saudi Arabia. Additionally, through our sporting management, we can share our extensive knowledge, our transfer policy, and our scouting policy, which has been recognized in recent years and further improved with artificial intelligence. We aim to create bonds where we can learn from them, and they can learn from Sevilla Football Club. On exporting Sevilla’s renowned scouting methodology … At the beginning of the 21st century, we started a scouting policy that allowed us to find players unknown to the market. These players came to Sevilla Football Club, we maximized their performance, achieved sporting successes in the form of European qualifications and national and European titles, and then we sold them, generating significant profits that we reinvested in new signings. When this practice became more common in football, we introduced a new factor: artificial intelligence. This sporting know-how can be offered to the Arab market to give them the ability, through artificial intelligence and the scouting of each club, to have an effective player acquisition and sales policy. On Sevilla’s global relationship-building … Sevilla Football Club is a club open to the world. Our internationalization plan aims to grow our fan base worldwide, and to do that, it is important to continue building relationships with clubs from different regions. We are also open to play as visitors against other clubs if an attractive opportunity arrives.