Spain's La Liga will be heading to Asia in 2011 after Thursday's launch of the LFP International Cup.

By Ian Griffiths, Singapore

Francisco Roca, Chief Executive Officer of La Liga, made the announcement at the second day of the Soccerex Asian Forum in Singapore.

Although details of the high profile event, which is being organised in conjunction with La Liga television rights holder Mediapro, remain somewhat sketchy, it was revealed that three as yet unnamed La Liga clubs will play in South East Asia either next July or August.

The Spanish trio will initially pit their wits against a local side from the one ASEAN country that successfully wins the bidding rights to host the Cup, a tournament that will at first be centred in Asia before, in due course, spreading around planet football.

With La Liga's global appeal and Spain's World Cup win at this summer's World Cup in South Africa still fresh in the memory, organisers believe they have a captive Asian audience ready and willing to buy into their message.

"For us, this is a very particularly exciting and new development of the Spanish League." Senor Roca declared.

"We are trying to change the gears in terms of how the Spanish league and its players are being promoted internationally.

"We feel we have a lot to offer to the world of football in general, and we think that Asia is one of the key areas for the expansion of football in general and of the Spanish league in particular."

Sergi Vieta, Football Events Director at Mediapro was equally adamant that Asia is eager for such a development.

"After the exploits of Barcelona in the 2009/10 season, and with Spain recently emerging as World Cup champions, we felt that this is the best time to introduce the LFP International Cup and share the beauty of Spanish football with the Asian market," he said.

Although good news for the legions of Asian football fans who follow the every move of David Villa or Cristiano Ronaldo, the key note of caution to emerge was the hint from Senor Roca that neither reigning La Liga champions Barcelona nor Real Madrid look set to come on board.

"So far, most of the international promotion of the Spanish league has been driven by the individual efforts of, for the most part, Real Madrid and Barcelona.

"That has of course been very successful for us, but that is not enough.

"Of course they will continue to do their individual efforts to do their tours, but we think that, as a competition, we are mature enough to not only promote our elite teams but also the rest of the La Liga teams."

An announcement as to which teams will participate in next year's get-together is scheduled to be announced at the end of December.