January 9 – INSIDE World Football is proud to announce our new and groundbreaking partnership with NeEase – www.163.com -and its main sports portal where INSIDE World Football will be a daily feature in Chinese. Launched today, INSIDE World football’s daily content is available to some 500 million Chinese users. NetEase is one of China’s most visited websites and China’s largest email services provider.
Press release: 9 January 2014
INSIDE World Football launched in China:
IWF First European Web Magazine in Chinese
Under an exclusive licensing contract, Inside World Football AG of Basel, Switzerland (the mother company of Inside World Football Ltd., UK), publishers of the homonymous daily web magazine INSIDE World Football, has signed a publishing agreement with one of China P.R.’s leading internet companies, NetEase – www.163.com. NetEase was China’s 7th most visited website per December 2012 (since further increased) and is China’s largest email services provider. Per December 31, 2012, NetEase had 530 million registered email users. Weibo (a micro blog) is part of the NetEase companies and best described as the equivalent of Twitter in China. As of January 1, 2014, INSIDE will appear daily in Chinese on the landing page of the Chinese web portal. NetEase Inc. is listed on NASDAQ company and has a market capitalization of USD 6 billion and assets in excess of USD 3 billion.
On February 15, 2013, we set out to launch a new INSIDE World Football after having taken control of 100% of Inside World Football Ltd., UK. One, that would highlight the business, the politics and the social aspects of the game.
The objective was to become a trusted source of reference for football administrators, for fans who want to know more, for readers who want to look behind the scenes, and for colleagues in journalism who wanted to see authoritative reporting by quality writers with access to the top echelons of world football.
Our targets were set very high. We felt that football reporting was far too anglophile if not anglo-obsessed. This at a time when European Leagues other than the exceptional English Premier League (we know, it is officially called The FA Premier League – no matter how much money Barclays have thrown at it over the years), have become far more relevant, powerful and certainly forces to reckon with in every respect.
We wanted to cross borders and showcase football development in Asia, the Americas, Africa, South America – and not only focus on Europe. We wanted to create alliances with major power-players such as Al Jazeera, Russia Today, Corriere dello Sport and exceptional columnists from around the world.
Our objective was never to tear down for the sake of it, but to look behind the story and let all parties speak.
We are uninterested in tabloid trash, just as we are uninterested in destructive and personal insults. We believe in constructive criticism without an agenda.
This approach is not liked by some who feel that nothing is good and everything is bad about football. We disagree. Those who have an axe to grind (far too often a very private axe ground to a personal agenda) are welcome to grind it elsewhere. There are many blogs around that have lost all relation to reality. We prefer to stay focused on what matters. And not on what matters to five people in three continents.
At a time when football’s governing body underwent change, when it adopted new structures, new policies and a stronger governance, ours was not the self-declared motive to ridicule and take down, but rather to scrutinize, analyse and to report. We feel that it is the reader who should make a judgment, never the reporter.
Naturally, our columnists have a free rein to say what they want to say and to point a finger at problems, failures and other relevant issues. There, we are no different from others who practice our trade. Where we are different, is how we deliver the message. And that was always to have an international, a global, and most importantly, an unbiased view.
Now, we have taken the next big step.
Actually, we believe it is an historic one, insofar as no other medium in our field has ever managed to make this move before.
Frankly, we don’t know of many – any – other media that would have crossed over to mainland China and teamed up with one of the top internet companies of the People’s Republic to have their product delivered to hundreds of millions of Chinese readers in the language of the largest population of the world.
INSIDE World Football is proud to announce today our new partnership with Netease – www.163.com, and in particular its main sports portal where INSIDE World Football will be a daily feature in Chinese from here on forward – and available immediately to some 500 million Chinese users. Daily.
This licensing agreement gives our readers access to the vastest of market in the world. Our web magazine – and soon our weekly edition and our video news programming – will be the access point of choice for European, African, North and South American and Asian companies and business interests to speak to the Chinese consumer, Chinese corporations and the leadership of Chinese football – in their language and on a daily basis.
INSIDE World Football, when we took it over not even a year ago, was a gamble but one accompanied by solid finances, excellent structures and a vision.
We set out to become the leading global media product for the world of football, the business of football and the politics of the game.
We are one step closer to reaching our vision. And we shall work hard to make it a reality.
Martin Wagner
Chairman of the Board
Inside World Football AG