Sports daily AS celebrates its arrival in Mexico with Del Bosque and Tebas

Sports newspaper AS has launched its online portal in Mexico, AS Mexico, with a team of stars of Mexican and Spanish football attending the official kick-off for the popular paper’s new sports website. They were joined by representatives from parent company Grupo Prisa and a host of leading sports personalities.

With the Spanish national football team’s manager Vicente del Bosque as a special guest, Alejandro Gómez, editor-in-chief of AS Mexico, spoke of the goals of this latest venture for AS: "AS is a Spanish daily paper in Mexico. And this is not just another website. It is not represent direct competition for other media.. . It is a Spanish newspaper with a Mexican twist."

While Decio de María, Guillermo Cantú, Raul "El Potro" Gutierrez, and Inés Sainz, among others, listened on, Alejandro Gómez debated with Alfredo Relaño, executive editor of AS, Javier Tebas, president of the Spanish League, La Liga, and Del Bosque, who stressed the importance of personal relationships in creating a winning team: "The importance of human relations is key to success in football."

Del Bosque also highlighted the importance of knowing how to deal with both success and failure: "We have been fortunate in knowing just how to deal with success. We inherited a team in top form after the victory of Euro 2008. (...) But we have also experienced defeat, and we have stayed true to form and kept our common sense.”

Alfredo Relaño stressed the importance of sports journalism... "The front pages of the mainstream newspapers will always dwell on the failures of men. You’ve got to pick up the sports papers to really see the successes. People turn to AS for good news. When there is bad news, you have to give them that too ".

Meanwhile, Javier Tebas spoke about club finances: "Sponsors don’t want to invest where they are not getting a return from players. Sponsors want triumphs and good news. Financial solvency is crucial..."