Sacyr yesterday hosted the draw for the 2020-21 Sacyr ASOBAL League handball season at its corporate headquarters in Madrid.
Sacyr’s chairman, Manuel Manrique, highlighted the “value of our hands” as a slogan for Spain and Sacyr’s top handball competition, as it combines values such as effort, talent, unity, experience, future and commitment, which also apply to Sacyr.
The president of ASOBAL, Adolfo Aragonés, repeated his thanks to Sacyr for continuing to believe in the ASOBAL project: “We know these are not easy times for companies, so we want to emphasize the paramount importance to our clubs of counting on the support and commitment of a multinational like Sacyr.”
The clubs found out what their path is to be in top-flight Spanish men's handball in the draw where they learned the order of their rivals to be played match after match through to the end of the 34 match days of the 2020-21 national championship season.
The two people responsible for drawing the balls, and so deciding the ASOBAL clubs’ fates, were José María Uceda and Azucena Vergara, Internal Transport and Auxiliary Management workers from the Hospital Infanta Cristina (Parla, Madrid). They represented the visible face of the multitude of heroes who have been and continue to be on the front line fighting to win the battle against COVID-19.
The first title to be disputed in the 2020-21 season will be the Sacyr ASOBAL Super Cup, with the current League champions, Barcelona, facing the runner up from the “Copa del Rey” or King’s Cup, BM. Benidorm, on August 29.
The first round of Sacyr ASOBAL League matches will be held on September 2. Sacyr will also lend its name to the Sacyr ASOBAL Cup, where the top four teams from the first round of the Sacyr ASOBAL League will face each other in late 2020.
Commitment to handball
Sacyr continues to be the ASOBAL League’s title sponsor for the 2020-21 season, which has been called the Sacyr ASOBAL League since the second round of the last season. The sponsorship agreement, signed in February 2020, includes the use of the Sacyr name in all the competitions organized by ASOBAL: League, Cup, Super Cup and Mini Cup. The Sacyr ASOBAL League image is used in all types of brand promotions and advertising media, and it appears in the games broadcast on the GOL TV channel.
The linkup between the two parties reinforces the influence of the Spanish League and of the sport of handball itself, which has around 100,000 members of the federation and strong social bonds in many cities.
For Sacyr, lending its name to the League represents an opportunity to increase its commitment to a sport with which it has been linked since 2015. In recent years, the multinational has sponsored the Royal Spanish Handball Federation (RFEBM).
During this period, the Spanish national team, with players in the Sacyr ASOBAL League represented, have had great success, winning Gold Medals at the last two European Championships (Zagreb 2018 and Stockholm 2020). The women’s national team, the “Guerreras” (Warriors), have also had great results, such as being runners up at the Japan World Cup.
A benchmark competition in Europe
The Association of Spanish Handball Clubs was founded in 1984 by 13 clubs and the first ASOBAL League was disputed in 1990-91. The main innovation in the Sacyr ASOBAL League 2020-21 is the expansion of the number of teams as a result of the early end to the previous championship due to the global health crisis. ASOBAL will now have 18 clubs, but it will stick with the competition system, with a regular two-round phase in which each one faces each other, on a total of 34 guaranteed show days.
In the 2019-20 season, handball fans had the chance to enjoy a total of 80 matches televised via the LaLigaSportsTV App: 69 Sacyr ASOBAL League, 7 “Copa del Rey”, 3 ASOBAL Cup and 1 ASOBAL Super Cup duels. The open channel GOL also offered the week’s top match in the Sacyr ASOBAL League.
