UK - The Soccerex European Forum could move from Manchester to Russia before 2013 to support the city’s recent 2018 World Cup bid, the show’s chief claims.
The latest two-day Soccerex European Forum 2011 was held at Manchester Central and attracted 1,400 delegates and a 25 per cent increase in exhibitors to 68.
The Forum is scheduled to run in Manchester for the next two years, but Soccerex MD Revie told EW the European Forum could relocate to Russia before 2013 if Manchester agreed to an early move.
According to Revie, the Manchester Forum made “a significant amount of money”, while the broader Soccerex portfolio was now worth £30m.
“The Manchester show represents great growth on last year’s first edition and we anticipate this will keep going in years three and four,” he said.
The newer European Forum is a spin-off of the Soccerex Global Convention, which has taken place in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. The last two global events were won by Johannesburg and Rio de Janeiro as part of their World Cup build ups. Rio retains rights to the Global Convention until 2013.
Ex-Manchester United and City footballer Denis Law officially opened the European Forum on 30 March. Law was one of a long list of football celebrities present includingOssie Ardilles, Kolo Toure, John Barnes, Bryan Robson and Carlos Alberto Torres.
Manchester City Council chief executive Sir Howard Bernstein welcomed visitors to the show and said the Forum was worth “hundreds of thousands of pounds in economic impact” to the city.
The full conference programme included UEFA’s Euro 2012 director Martin Kallen and president of Poland 2012 Marcin Herra discussing the legacy of the joint Euro 2012 event in Poland and Ukraine.
“Our investment and infrastructure developments are not only for Euro 2012, but to show what we can do for bigevents in future,” Herra said. “We want to show visitors - and we expect up to a million guests to come – that Poland is a new place in Europe to organise big events.
“The new National Stadium in Warsaw, for example, can hold large events and willhave 13,000sqm of event space, as well as being the biggest congress facility in the capital.”
In addition, plans for a new Krakow expo venue were approved in March.
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