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Kolkata, July 8 (IANS) There were scepticism before, but eventually Spanish LaLiga viewers have lapped up the artificial crowd, not only in Spain, but across the Indian subcontinent, said the league's top official and presenter.
Since the resumption of football in Germany's Bundesliga, football lovers have had to tune their ears to crowd noise created artificially as matches were being played behind closed doors.
LaLiga too adopted the same technology for their broadcast in this part of the world as did the English Premier League.
"We have a younger viewership with many of them playing a lot of video games so they are more used to that. But if you ask me, personally my reaction is that it works well. Professional reviews and fans' reaction has been ravishing. There has been international praise.
"I read on British press, German press... So it was unanimous that the solution was good. But we cannot forget the fans," Jose Antonio Cachaza, Managing Director, LaLiga India, said to a question posed by IANS during a video interaction with reporters facilitated by LaLiga.
"Just today, our President (Javier Tebas) said that Spain fans can choose all matches having two channels. One having digital enhancement, and the other without them. It was close to 70 per cent (fans) choosing the show with digital enhancements," he added.
LaLiga, which is shown on Facebook in India, is hosted by well-known football presenter Joe Morrison.
"Before I heard the crowd noise, I had a lot of doubt and certainly all the fans I spoke to. But as soon as I heard it, I was like wow. This is actually very good. I was expecting fan noise to be at one level and you didn't see it rise or fall as a team was getting close to goal or a goal was being scored," said Morrison.
"And I think a lot of fans feel the same. Before we saw all of this, there was a lot of doubt. As soon as we heard it, we have been getting lots of comments from the fans going 'wow'. They ask how does this work? Also they are now asking can the players hear this? If they can't, why don't they put speakers into the stadia so that they can hear it and react to it. I love it," he said.
Morrison also spoke on how racist comments are filtered out when they are broadcasting matches live on Facebook.
"We have different levels of filters, some are automatic filters. So any abusive language is automatically taken out of the system. So if someone was racially abusing whether it be players or anyone else, that would automatically come out of the system. So no, thankfully any such comment, if they are being made, don't make it through to our programming live on air," he said.
Cachaza was asked when fans can be expected back to the stadia.
"I cannot give you a concrete answer. Basically LaLiga is working these things out with the Spanish government. The last development says that it is 100 per cent sure that the four weeks remaining in LaLiga will be finished behind closed doors. There is hope to return with partial attendance in September. I think September 12 is when LaLiga will be back," he said.
--IANS
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