12.06.2007
The European football organisation UEFA, lead by its President Michel Platini and his Senior Advisor William Gaillard, was honoured with the European Communication Award 2007 last night in Brussels.
William Gaillard received the prize in the Concert Noble for working to democratise European football and spreading the game’s benefits to the EU’s new members: “UEFA is more used to giving awards than to receiving them. We are honoured and moved to receive this first European Communication Award and we take it as a token of our commitment to communication by means of the most popular sport in Europe, bringing together some 60 million players at all levels.”
Florence Ranson, Managing Vice President of the European Association of Communication Directors (EACD), who presented the award, stressed the UEFA’s “tremendously successful efforts to democratise Europe’s No 1 game”. She explained that “football is the epitomy of tolerance and integration. The UEFA uses the power of the game as Europe’s ultimate common language. Hardly anything could be a better means of communication”.
The EACD presented the award for the first time. It is designed to pay tribute to someone who has contributed remarkably to the establishment of Europe. The shortlist for the inaugural European Communication Award contained two further personalities who, in different ways, are working to make Europe a more vibrant and closely-linked place. The other nominees were Jean-Claude Juncker, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, for his dedication of much of his political life to bringing Europe closer together, and Cecilia Malmström, Sweden’s EU Minister, for campaigning to make Europe more open and bring Sweden closer to the EU.
The winner has been decided upon by a vote of the EACD members. The event fell in the middle of the EACD’s inaugural European Communication Summit, which gathers leading communications and media professionals from across Europe on June 11 and 12 in Brussels to discuss the development of their industry.
The complete programme and further information: www.communication-summit.eu
Further information is available at www.eacd-online.eu
Contact:
Dr Herbert Heitmann
European Association of Communication Directors
13-15, Rue de la Charité
B-1210 Brussels
Tel +32 (0)2 219 23 07
Fax +32 (0)2 219 22 92
herbert.heitmann@eacd-online.eu
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