17 September 2018 – South African Football Association (SAFA) President Dr Danny Jordaan has lavished praise on partners LaLiga for putting money where their mouth is after they committed to sponsoring the U17 Women’s National team (Bantwana) trip to Spain.

Simphiwe Dludlu’s girls will leave for Valencia, Spain on 20 September 2018 to play two important friendly matches against select sides from Liga Iberdrola, LaLiga’s national women’s league, and will be returning home on 30 September.

It is this gesture among other initiatives between SAFA and LaLiga which has precipitated the SAFA President to lavish praise on the Spanish Professional wing for joining hands with the Association.

“In LaLiga, we have honest and dedicated partners. They have made a number of undertakings – taking our U17 girls to Spain is one of such cooperation which we are really proud of,” said Dr Jordaan.

“We have received balls to give to our Provinces from LaLiga, they have sent us LaLiga qualified coaches to train our local coaches and have been heavily involved in initiatives with our Regions and Provinces to develop the sport at grassroots level. I want to take this opportunity to thank their director here, Antonio Barradas for spearheading these initiatives.”

Dr Jordaan urged Dludlu and her players to seize the opportunity of playing in Europe as part of the preparations for the FIFA U17 World Cup.

“They can only become better players by playing against top sides in Europe and I want to thank LaLiga for making this trip possible.”

Bantwana leave for Spain on Thursday via Frankfurt, Germany and are expected to play their first friendly match against Levante UD at 20h00 on Monday, 24 September 2018.

Their second and final game will be on Wednesday, 26 September against Valencia (kick off 16h45). They will then spend most of the week hard at training and being exposed to high tech facilities.

Barradas said LaLiga will continue to work closely with SAFA in a bid to improve the game in the country and the continent at large.

“When we signed the MOU with SAFA, we made it clear that our core intention was to work closely on a number of initiatives to develop the sport; one of them being to improve the game among women.

“We are glad that the South African U17 team will be going to the FIFA U17 World Cup and we hope our help in getting them ready for the biggest stage will aid them in having a good tournament in Uruguay,” said Barradas.

The FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup will take place in Uruguay from 13 November – 1 December 2018.