MADRID, 19 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
‘A22 Sports Management’, the company established to sponsor and assist the creation of the European Super League, has appointed the German Bernd Reichart as its new CEO, with the main mission of leading “an active and extensive dialogue” with the world of football in seeks reforms in club competitions.
The sports development society has chosen this 48-year-old executive, with extensive experience in the world of sports and the media, to better publicize the project led by Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and Juventus, and which aims to turn football on the Old Continent.
According to A22 Sports Management in a statement on Wednesday, the new CEO, “in principle, will focus on initiating an active and extensive dialogue with a wide group of stakeholders in football that will include clubs, players, coaches, fans, media and public officials.
“The aim is to drive the development of a sustainable sporting model for European club competitions that reflects the mutual best long-term interests of fans and the wider football community,” the company added.
For his part, Reichart believes that “the current situation in European club football is marked by several challenges, which will not be resolved by themselves” and recalled that Florentino Pérez, Joan Laporta and Andrea Agnelli, presidents of Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and Juventus respectively, “have recently set out their views on the problems facing the sport.”
“I think they are asking the right questions and personally I would like to hear from many different voices so that the European football community can find the right answers together. The sport we all love will benefit from an honest and open dialogue, without restrictions, about of a brighter future through profound reform,” said the German.
He considers that European football is “losing its undisputed leadership position by not offering the best games week after week”, which will suffer in a drop in interest “from the youngest”, and that its current financial model “is ruined and it is inadequate and unsustainable”, warning that it must survive “from the income it generates and not from external injections of capital”.
Similarly, the CEO emphasizes that European clubs must be “sovereign and the owners of their destiny” and that currently “they are not free to organize themselves at a European level” since the only governance in Europe at the level of competitions is owned by UEFA.
“We are convinced that there is a consensus among European clubs that things cannot continue like this and that we can do better. The right time for dialogue is now. The reform of a sport that is loved by millions of fans must take into account a wide range of views from stakeholders. European football deserves an open and honest dialogue about its future, free from sanctions and threats of exclusion from the competition. Let’s discuss, for the sake of this game.”
The appointment occurs when the legal process between the Super League and UEFA in the Court of Justice of the European Union is still ongoing, of which ‘A22’, which focuses mainly on the general structure and the operational and financial aspects of this possible new competition, is co-plaintiff and that revolves around the legality, according to competition law, of the current monopoly of the governing body of European football club competitions and whose sentence is expected for 2023.
Bernd Reichart has experience in the world of communication, since until recently he held the position of CEO of the RTL Deutschland Group, one of Europe’s leading media companies, but also in the world of sports, since he started his career in the sports rights industry with UFA Sports and in 2003 he worked as Marketing Manager at the sports rights agency ‘Sportfive’.
A year later, the German executive moved to ‘Antena 3’, currently ‘Atresmedia’, as Head of Investor Relations, and later, between 2007 and 2013, he supervised a portfolio of open television channels as Managing Director Multichannel.
Reichart then joined the RTL Group in Germany, assuming the duties of Managing Director of ‘VOX’, where he launched some of the most successful programs in the history of this German channel. In January 2019, he was appointed CEO of the RTL Deutschland Group, running one of Europe’s leading private broadcasting groups until the end of 2021, and was also part of the Management Committee of the Bertelsmann Group, a media company, until June 2022. communication, services and education that operates in 50 countries around the world.
