LaLiga and Epsom College join forces for LaLiga Academy Malaysia, a pioneering football and academics venture

LaLiga and Epsom College in Malaysia have partnered to open the LaLiga Academy Malaysia (“Academy”) on the school’s 50-acre campus in Bandar Enstek, just outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Epsom’s partnership with LaLiga highlights the school’s ongoing commitment to providing a world-class holistic education that blends sports and academics in equal measure, to students across Asia.

The LaLiga Academy Malaysia will welcome players from 8 to 18 years of age to train under the guidelines of the LaLiga Methodology, whilst completing their full-time education, including IGCSEs and A-Levels, at Epsom. The Academy will be led by a Technical Director from LaLiga and will ensure that their leading training concepts are appropriately disseminated for the comprehensive development of youth football players.

The Academy will be the latest addition to Epsom’s Sports Academies, combining high performance sports training and world-class academics. “Our Sports Academies, in partnership with leaders across the various sports, provide an ecosystem for students to explore their sporting passion at a high level. We launched our partnership with Patrick Mouratoglou, the Mouratoglou Tennis Programme in 2022, and have recently launched the ECM Golf Academy to help students realise their sporting dreams. We are now thrilled to be launching the LaLiga Academy Malaysia to give young aspiring footballers the opportunity to polish their skills with the renowned LaLiga methodology.”, says Mark Lankester, CEO of the EDUC8 group.

Sport is integrated seamlessly into the existing academic curriculum - which is based on nearly 200 years of academic excellence as at Epsom College in the UK - and students live, learn and train in a holistic learning ecosystem that places equal emphasis on academic and sporting achievements. Matthew Brown, Headmaster at Epsom said, “We believe in cultivating the love of learning from an early age and creating a safe, supportive and encouraging environment for our students to pursue their interests, whatever they may be. We are thrilled that this partnership will give our students the opportunity to throw themselves headfirst into ‘the beautiful game’ of football - to improve their skills and to play the game that they love - without sacrificing their academic pursuits.”

The Academy is the latest international project from LaLiga Grassroots, an initiative designed to promote football at the grassroots level which has developed to more than 640 projects led by 900 coaches across 50 countries. The organisation is a pioneer amongst the major European leagues thanks to its network of academies, which focus on the development of young international talent. “Football is growing exponentially in Southeast Asia and LaLiga is excited to make its mark in Malaysia. It’s uncommon to find a partner that has not only one of the most expansive campus’ in Asia, but a deep ongoing agenda of offering ambitious sports offerings to its students. To date, LaLiga Grassroots has trained more than 200,000 players and 25,000 local coaches around the world but we also recognise the importance of academics. We are very proud of this partnership as it brings two industry leaders in sports and education together for the benefit of youth development,” says Adrián Prol, LaLiga’s delegate in Malaysia.

More information can be found on the EPSOM College Malaysia website https://LaLiga.epsomschool.com/ or the LaLiga Grassroots website https://www.laligagrassroots.com/.