By David Owen
December 15 – The Chinese-owned Infront sports marketing company is splitting its summer sports and football businesses.
Sports rights specialist Julien Ternisien is to join as director of the summer sports unit. He is expected to take up the new role by next May. Stephan Herth will in future focus entirely on football.
Ternisien joins from the European Broadcasting Union, where he was head of sports rights for the summer sports portfolio.
Infront, which is headed by former FIFA President Sepp Blatter’s nephew Philippe, was acquired in 2015 by the Chinese Dalian Wanda Group for more than €1 billion.
Philippe Blatter said he was “delighted” that Ternisien would be joining, adding: “He brings with him extensive experience in rights acquisition as well as an impressive network of leading sports federations.
“At the same time I am happy that Stephan Herth can now place his sole focus on driving our continued success in football, a core business of Infront and part of our DNA.”
Wanda is a leading sponsor of FIFA and 2018 is, of course, World Cup year.
Headquartered in Zug, Infront has offices in around 15 countries.
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