The UFC vill ha fler galor i Europa. I nästa månad har organisationen som vi vet Sverigedebut och Globen kommer fyllas med UFC-entusiaster. Enligt UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta så är Sverige ett i raden av länder som de hoppas få ha galor i vid årets slut.
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– I think Italy will be next, säger Fertitta till mmafighting.com . Me and Lawrence Epstein, the UFC’s general counsel, went out to Italy and met with the owners. There’s really only one venue in Italy that makes sense for us. There’s an arena right outside of Milan, it’s owned by a family, and once again, they had these misconceptions about what this was. ’Oh my gosh, you’re going to have these guys get in there and fight in a cage,’ and all this other stuff. But we went out there, sat down with them, explained who we were, what our background was, safety, regulation, all those things. [We] invited them to the fight in Birmingham [for UFC 138], and they were blown away. They said, ’You guys are welcome any time you want.’ So I get an e-mail from Lawrence earlier this week. They’re having a fight later this month; they’ve already sold 15,000 tickets.
Eventet kommer att äga rum på Forum Assago di Milano den 24 mars och kvällens huvudmatchen kommer vara Valentijn Overeem vs Michael Kita.
– The thing that was encouraging to me was I didn’t really know where the sport was in that market yet. I didn’t know how developed it was. We just did a deal with Sky Sports there about six months ago and the ratings have been really good. It’s all working. So I think by next year we could go there and do something.
UFC tar över Europa
Fertitta är också optmistisk vad gäller att hålla en UFC-gala i Spanien för första gången.
– We just launched in Spain on a major market where we launched The Ultimate Fighter, and I just got an e-mail this morning, ratings continue to go up. I think we’re doing well over 250,000 viewers, which is a big number for that market given the population. So that’s another market that we’ll be looking to go to pretty soon.
Efter att ha gjort många försök till att etablera UFC i Franrike så verkar det nu som att de lyckats där med.
– France is a massive opportunity, säger Lorenzo. The Sports Ministry is definitely positive on the issues. The issue is a little bit different because here in the United States, the government actually regulates the sport and they have an entity that regulates it. In a lot of these other countries, it’s different. They are more in tune with the Olympic style of regulating things where you have a federation. So they’re fine with it, as long as there is a federation put in place to oversee the rules and regulations.
– So a federation has been established, so it’s just a matter of getting it recognized by the Sports Ministry, which we actually have met with, and they have been very positive. David Douillet [France’s Sports Minister] is an ex-Olympic Gold Medalist in judo, so he understands the sport. We’re very enoucraged that you’ll be eating croissants watching the UFC pretty soon.
Än så länge har UFC haft 14 galor i Europa, elva i Storbritannien, två i Tyskland och ett på Irland. Får UFC bestämma så kommer många galor läggas till dessa 14 inom en inte allt för lång framtid.
