Spain’s top flight football division La Liga have announced a landmark deal with Facebook that will allow viewers in the Indian sub-continent to watch every game over the next three seasons for free on the social network.

A statement from La Liga said all 380 league matches for the new season, which begins on Friday, would be available to viewers in India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

Facebook and La Liga declined to give financial details of the deal which sees the social network giant unseat Sony Pictures Network as the rights holder in the region.

Sony paid a reported $32 million for the right to broadcast La Liga between 2014 and 2018.

Facebook began venturing into sports streaming in 2017 by broadcasting weekly Major League Baseball games and earlier this month agreed a deal with broadcaster Eleven Sports to show one La Liga and one Serie A game per week on its platform.

It is the latest move from Facebook, and the tech industry in general, to invest in highly lucrative sports rights for emerging streaming services.

The social network already shows Major League Baseball to US audiences while Amazon earlier this year won rights to show 20 English Premier League matches per season in Britain as of 2019.

Facebook’s monitoring system will prevent against leakage, ensuring only viewers inside the Indian sub-continent will be able to watch the games on its platform.

The games will initially be shown without any adverts, although according to Peter Hutton, the company’s Director of Global Live Sports, Facebook is doing trials in advertising on live content in the United States which may be replicated on its La Liga coverage at a later date.