The change will take effect on August 17th, marking the start of the new season.

SmartBank is Santander’s range of products and services for young people between the ages of 18 and 31.

Madrid, 30th July 2019.- Santander, LaLiga’s title sponsor, is to change the name of the Spanish second division ahead of the new 2019/20 season. Formerly known as LaLiga 1l2l3, the league will now take the name LaLiga SmartBank. 

This change, which will take effect from August 17th to mark the start of the new season, makes reference to SmartBank, Santander’s range of products, services and initiatives aimed at helping 18 to 31-year-olds in the fields of employment, education and entrepreneurship.  

Santander has been LaLiga’s primary sponsor for three years, a fundamental component of its global football industry strategy complemented by its agreements with the Champions League and Copa Libertadores. Spain’s top professional division will continue to be known as LaLiga Santander.

“LaLiga is synonymous with innovation and is constantly looking to the future, so we are delighted to partner with Santander in their commitment to young people and to promote and strengthen LaLiga SmartBank from this season on,” said Juan Carlos Diaz, Commercial and Marketing Director at LaLiga.

Felipe Martin, Head of Sponsorships, Events and Social Media at Santander, Spain, said: “This new name reflects our bank’s commitment to our youngest customers, who through SmartBank can benefit from products and services which help them to achieve key objectives such as buying their first home and finding their first job in addition to boosting their training opportunities thanks to the bank’s relationship with universities. These are all fundamentally important objectives for personal progress, which reflects those which the teams competing in LaLiga SmartBank take on each season in their bid to achieve promotion to LaLiga Santander.” 

About LaLiga 

Founded in 1984, LaLiga (Liga de Fútbol Profesional) is a sports association comprising the 42 teams that make up the first and second divisions of professional football in Spain. LaLiga, based in Madrid, is responsible for the LaLiga Santander and LaLiga 123 leagues and the television production, which in the 2018/19 season reached more than 2.7 billion people globally. The association also has an active foundation and is the world’s first professional football league with a league for intellectually challenged footballers: LaLiga Genuine Santander.

About Santander

Banco Santander (SAN SM, STD US, BNC LN) is a leading retail and commercial bank, founded in 1857 and headquartered in Spain. It has a meaningful presence in 10 core markets in Europe and the Americas, and is the largest bank in the euro zone by market capitalization. At the end of June 2019, Banco Santander had EUR 1.03 trillion in customer funds (deposits and mutual funds), 142 million customers, 13,000 branches and 200,000 employees. Banco Santander made underlying profit of EUR 4,045 million in the first half of 2019, an increase of 2% in constant euros compared to the same period last year.