World Football Summit Asia makes Kuala Lumpur Asia’s Capital of Football

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA - Media OutReach - April 29, 2019 - The first Asian edition of World Football Summit, the international congress of the football industry, in Kuala Lumpur received a roaring reception from over 2,000 football industry professionals from around the world. Themed 'Where Asian Football Industry Meets", the two-day summit successfully kick-started with important discussion topics and business opportunities as part of its mission to elevate the football landscape of Asia.

Dato' Haji Hamidin Haji Mohd Amin, President of FAM delivers the opening speech at the first ever World Football Summit Asia

Speaking at the summit, Mohan Rajaratnam, CEO of World Football Summit Asia shared, "I am proud to say that World Football Summit Asia has solidified its mark as the leading platform to gather the Asian football industry and making Kuala Lumpur the capital of the football business for these two days. I must convey my deepest gratitude and appreciation to all of our partners, participating speakers and attending delegates from Malaysia and the rest of the world. We are confident that all attendees will achieve what they came here for, gaining greater insight to the industry and making connections, ultimately strengthening the development of Asian football."  

Jan Alessie, Director of World Football Summit added that: "We are extremely gratified that the first edition of World Football Summit Asia has been a great success. At the moment, the summit is being filled with prospects of huge potential business opportunities and economic growth for Asia. It is important that we organise and attend such events where brands from Europe can meet and connect with brands from Asia. Today, a bridge has been created between these two giant markets and we need to keep the momentum going."

Throughout the inspiring dialogues, speakers and delegates addressed the recognition of the growing importance and potential of the Asian football industry in terms of eSports, fan engagement, audio-visual rights, women's football, antipiracy efforts, technology innovation, and many others. Connecting and mobilising businesses across industries, sectors and national borders through the summit are resulted in concrete action points in elevating the industry.

"We are seeing an overwhelming positive response to the inaugural Asian leg of the summit. Here, everyone is seeing the growing importance of the Asian market from a geostrategic point of view and for economic development in the football industry. As the host country, we hope to see Malaysia become a strategic market to penetrate and act as a meeting hub for other Asian counterparts to gather and implement the best of practices. This is in line with our vision of ensuring that more Asian teams succeed on the world stage and to make football the number one sport in the continent." - Dato' Windsor John, General Secretary of the AFC.

 "As one of the fastest growing nations in the world, Asia will continue to remain an illustrious hub for business opportunities, especially for European businesses to expand globally. From today, we can see that more and more Asian businesses are also in the position of exploring new markets which makes a summit like this an ideal platform to collaborate with like-minded people. As LaLiga aspires to double our viewership in Asia by 2020, working with the World Football Summit Asia as their global partner gives us the opportunity to help capitalize on the potential untapped market in Asia" - Oscar Mayo, International Director of LaLiga.

The summit gathered international attendees from over 60 different countries, where 70% of them were senior executives, over 70 football clubs and 22 exhibitors. There was an impressive line-up of the most recognizable and influential names in the football world including Dato' Windsor John, General Secretary of the AFC; Oscar Mayo, International Director at LaLiga, Luis Vicente, Chief Digital Transformation & Innovation Officer at FIFA, Michael Higham, Head of Partnerships at Sevilla FC, Pere Guardiola, Founder & CEO at Media Base Sports, Robert Klein, CEO at Bundesliga International GMBH, Jun Zhao, CEO at China Sports Media, Sebastien Wasels, Managing Director Asia Pacific at PSG, Jordi Camps, Managing Director, APAC HQ at FC Barcelona, Ash Hashim, Executive Director at Futbolita.

 To find out more about the speakers and event details, please visit the summit's website: https://asia.worldfootballsummit.com.

 Please find images downloadable from:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=192Hx9D9JzB3CGlbbMABQKDiGI-fquZCx