Movistar Plus, the Spanish pay-television operator owned by telecoms giant Telefónica, has supplemented its extensive soccer offering by acquiring rights to domestic competitions in the burgeoning women’s game.

Starting this weekend, Movistar will show an exclusive match in each round of the Liga Iberdrola, the top women’s league and action from the Copa de la Reina, the cup competition.

The fixtures will be shown on its new general sports channel Vamos.

Until now, coverage of the Liga Iberdrola has been shared by Gol, the free-to-air commercial channel owned by sports rights and production company Mediapro, which will continue to offer two games per round, and pay-TV channel BeIN Sports, which has now pulled out.

Movistar already holds extensive rights to the men’s top-tier LaLiga, second-tier Segunda Division and Copa Del Rey, plus the Uefa Champions League and Europa League, England’s Premier League and Germany’s Bundesliga.

The announcement of Movistar’s move into women’s soccer comes a week after 48,121 spectators watched Atletico Madrid’s women’s team defeat Athletic Bilbao in the quarter-finals of the Copa de la Reina, a record for a club-level women’s match in Europe.

Sportcal