Football is the number one topic in international coverage of Spain.

More than a third of all articles last year revolved around it, after 2020 had almost everything to do with the corona pandemic - including Spanish sport.

In no other European country were there so many football articles in the world press.

Hans Christian Roessler

Political correspondent for the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb based in Madrid.

  • Follow I follow

This emerges from the study "Spain's presence in the international press in 2021" published by the Madrid think tank "Real Instituto Elcano".

According to this, the football club "Real Madrid" is the second most important institution after the EU with which the country is associated in foreign media.

However, the researchers do not consider the media reduction of Spain to a soccer powerhouse to be a weakness in its external image.

Overall, Spanish politics has received less attention than in previous years, but "football conveys a positive image of Spain, where resilience, teamwork, physical fitness, competitiveness and success dominate".

In 2021, 291,198 articles mentioning Spain and Spanish were published in the world press, according to the survey.

The country ranks fifth in Europe for coverage outside its borders, after the UK, France, Germany and Italy.

Poland, whose population is similar in size to that of Spain, is in 11th place. In Germany, Spain is of great interest.

This also applies to topics that have nothing to do with football.

German interest in Spain is greater than in the UK, where most holidaymakers traditionally come from.

In the past year, the rush of migrants to the Spanish exclave in Ceuta and the volcanic eruption in La Palma found greater media attention in Germany.

When it comes to the Spanish economy, international coverage of the fashion group Zara, which has long been the country's best-known brand outside of Spain, stands out.

This time, the main focus was on the founder's daughter, who took over the management of the Inditex concern, to which Zara belongs.

The study notes with satisfaction that the reporting on tourism, which is vital for the Spanish economy, was more positive last year than in the previous year.

The share of news that linked tourism to Covid was 17 percent in 2021, and doubled that in 2020.

After troubled years marked by the Catalonia conflict and the pandemic, Spain is said to be returning to normal abroad in the media.