28 The two men have known each other for some time, since before Hendriks had begun to make a name for himself. “This was a wonderful occasion for me to share some of the critical thoughts I had been mulling over with regard to the hockey world, such as the format of the European Cup. As a participant the event swallowed up about half of our yearly budget. For what? During my speech I launched my theory that what we needed was a serious competition to decide who was the strongest club team in Europe.” One of the members in the Audience was Bert Spaak from the PRO SPORT a Dutch sports marketing and media agency. “Maurits Hendriks was completely right. One of the problems of the old-style European Cup was that the tournament had no owner. It was in the hands of the club that “Leandro Negre made a great contribution by creating the space that was needed to realise the vision” JONS HENSEL organised it and the following year it was in the hands of another club. There was no recognisable look and feel. Furthermore the structure was lousy. The teams played four games over four days, with the fi nal being held on Whit Monday, which in many other countries is simply an average Monday.” The fourth man Hendriks: “Once I had launched my idea for a European competition, Jons said: we are just going to do this! That is Jons’ strength. He doesn’t say: ‘Let’s think it over.’ I clarifi ed my plan to Bert Spaak a couple of times more that weekend. Then Jons got Leandro Negre involved, at that time the President of the European Hockey Federation. All this time the European Cup tournament was still going on.” Pagina 27
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