As the three-year cycle of European competitions concludes in June 2015, UEFA held their third annual media workshop in Wembley, London, inviting representatives from the 80 clubs participating in the group stage of the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League.

PAOK FC were represented in this forum for a second consecutive season by their Media and Communications Director Jotis Panagiotas, who was informed along with his counterparts of other clubs on the aims of the European federation regarding the communication upgrading of the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League.

As UEFA’s head of communications David Farrelly said, there is a huge effort in place in the last two years to boost the UEFA Europa League and to have it approach the high standards of its “sibling”, the UEFA Champions League.

UEFA staff are conscious of the difficulties in this task and, therefore, have asked club representatives to express their thoughts so that everyone can end up rowing in the same direction, with common objectives regarding the football product they want to project.

On 3 and 4 September, Wembley welcomed communication directors of the 80 clubs participating in this season’s group stages of European competition. They discussed the high requirements of UEFA and the TV rights holders and the way those can be met with the optimum result, while offering the clubs the opportunity to boost their image.

The significant changes in European competitions, scheduled to be implemented in 2015-18, will affect the everyday activity of the clubs. Therefore, UEFA people have proposed the creation of a committee by clubs’ members that will discuss and provide instant solutions to issues arising during the season.

Apart from UEFA director of communication David Farrelly, clubs’ representatives had also the opportunity to hear Senior Commercial Operations Manager James Evangelides and managers of UEFA digital and editorial content Jim Agnew and Kevin Ashby respectively.