By David Owen
September 6 – Infront Sports & Media, the Chinese-owned international sports marketing company, has announced a major expansion of its Italian football activities. The company has acquired Gsport, a leader in marketing rights management in Italian club football, as well as Sport09, an Italian sports media agency.
Top management of both companies – Natale Bellati and Roberto Aliprandi, respectively chief executive and chief operating officer of Sport09, and Alessandro Giacomini, chief executive of Gsport – are to remain with the group. The companies will be integrated into Infront Italy, the organisation’s Italian arm, and rebranded under the Infront identity.
Infront, which was itself acquired recently by Chinese businessman Wang Jianlin’s Dalian Wanda Group, said the new acquisitions would allow it to widen and strengthen its expertise and solutions offered to sponsor brands in Italy.
Giuseppe Ciocchetti, managing director of Infront Italy, said the company was “convinced that these important acquisitions will bring immediate benefits to our partners in club football and to brands that want to become associated with top sports properties”.
He went on: “We felt the need to enhance our internal sales force with a widespread presence across the country to be closer to an increasing portfolio of client partners interested in achieving broad nationwide coverage through multi club partnerships. The acquisition…addresses these market needs and we are confident that the new integrated Infront sales team will create more efficiency and better service for all our clients.”
Gsport was founded in 2003 and is said to advise several clubs in Serie A and B.
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