CA Osasuna, as part of the club’s aim to keep taking steps towards becoming one of the most forward-thinking clubs in LALIGA EA SPORTS, has once again demonstrated that working on social issues is a priority for the institution. The latest example was seen with the recent agreement that the club reached with the University of Navarra, establishing the ‘Osasuna-University of Navarra Campus’, through which the two institutions will work together to create training programmes, activities and postgraduate courses for students. The partnership was signed by the president of the Navarre club, Luis Sabalza, and by the rector of the University of Navarra, María Iraburu, in a ceremony that took place on November 20th. Click this link https://a.meridianbet.ke/c/C7pYjz to start gaming and stand a chance of winning big with a meridianbet.
The ‘Osasuna-University of Navarra Campus’ has the main objective of providing activities, training programmes and postgraduate courses in various disciplines, all of which are essential in today’s football industry. These include sports management, sports health, specialised healthcare in the field of sport, communication, technology, education and sport. Each of the courses will be officially certified by the University of Navarra and this will enhance the training opportunities available to professionals, who increasingly need more specific education in order to work in football clubs, which generate almost 200,000 jobs in Spain and contribute 1.4% of the country’s GDP.
It is important to highlight that the basis of this agreement between CA Osasuna and the University of Navarra, two prestigious entities from the Navarre region of Spain, had already been established a few years ago. Back in the 2016/17 season, the University of Navarra Clinic became the official medical service of the club. Since then, both organisations have looked to join forces where possible, with different departments of the football club, such as communication, pedagogy and psychology, helping to train students through internships. The aim has been to gradually expand this collaboration to improve the chances of finding work for a greater number of students in various fields, and now these training programmes, activities and postgraduate courses will help with this, through their different formats and durations.
From CA Osasuna’s point of view, the agreement has three fundamental objectives. As the club explained: “The first concerns the fact that clubs are increasingly demanding more specific profiles to work with, in both the sporting and non-sporting areas, which is why we are launching ourselves into the university environment, giving us the chance to help train exactly what we need. Another reason is that CA Osasuna is a member-run club, so it has always been an entity with a strong social commitment to the local community. It seems to us that taking this step also helps us to give back to society a part of what we receive. Then, finally, there is also the Boost LALIGA Plan, which has encouraged us to look for agreements and synergies in places where we didn’t look before.”
As for what this agreement means for CA Osasuna itself, the club highlighted the importance of the football industry in Spain’s job creation and wealth generation. The club stated: “There is an increasing demand for professionals from the club to take part in sports industry forums or to offer talks, classes or mentoring in the university environment. We thought it was a good time to bring together everything we know how to do and to offer this to those young people who are interested in learning about the football industry, which today generates almost 200,000 jobs in our country and represents 1.44% of GDP. We are also fortunate to have a world-class university centre in our region in the University of Navarra, which is one of the top 100 European centres and one of the most outstanding private universities in the country. We believe that this union can be very interesting for both parties.”
Furthermore, CA Osasuna are aware that the young people trained through the ‘Osasuna-University of Navarra Campus’ will end up having a much more specialised training for the future, which will be useful when the club is searching for qualified personnel. The club added: “We have signed the agreement through which this collaboration between CA Osasuna and the University of Navarra will be developed. From here, the idea is to launch, through a three-year plan, various programmes and postgraduate courses focusing on health, nutrition, club management, communication, etc. Each of these areas is closely related to the work we carry out on a daily basis at CA Osasuna, so this will help us to complement the training of the young people in a very specialised way. Plus, this will undoubtedly lead to a strong pool from which to bring in talent to the club. That is the idea, that the students who pass through the ‘Osasuna-University of Navarra Campus’ could end up working with us, or elsewhere in the football industry with complete confidence. This agreement is something that we have been working on for almost a year. We looked at the areas where the University of Navarra is strong and at the areas where there is crossover with what we do on a day-to-day basis. In this sense, we’re talking about fields such as sports management, sports nutrition, sports law, big data and artificial intelligence, sustainability, marketing, communication… This has led to this project, one which will gradually take shape.”
Meanwhile, CA Osasuna president Luis Sabalza and University of Navarra rector María Iraburu have expressed their excitement about the signing of this agreement. The football club president stated: “With the signing of this agreement, we leap into the academic world to train top-level professionals in the sports field. We do it with the help of one of the most prestigious university centres in the world, the University of Navarra. The union of our knowledge of the sports world and our passion with the experience and educational quality of the University of Navarra can only be a formula for success.” As for María Iraburu, the rector of the university, she expressed her pride by asserting: “CA Osasuna and the University of Navarra have a long history of collaboration, through the health care of the team provided by our Clinic. Now we take another step in the academic field. With this agreement we want to promote, together with CA Osasuna, activities and training programmes related to sports.”
This article originally appeared in Global Futbol, LALIGA’s monthly newsletter.
