This week, PR industry leader Shimon Cohen on a passion for Cardiff City, great Wales tries of yore and his hopes for less corruption in sport.
What are your sporting passions?
Cardiff City FC and the Wales rugby side.
How did you first get into sport?
I started going to see Cardiff at a very early age. I was born there, I went to school there and so you went to see the local team. I think the first game I went to see was Crystal Palace and that was a big game in those days in the lower divisions. It was a very different time. You would go to the game because it was a fun, family experience. There was none of the thuggery that came later. If youre born in a sporting town with one football club you fall into it. I got the bug.
Read more: My Sporting Life – Lawyer Simon Leaf on refereeing, London 2012 and darts
Do you also participate in sport?
No. But I watch a lot of sport and I work in sport so Im more than an armchair fan!
Neil Warnock guided Cardiff City back into the Premier League this year (Source: Getty)
Most cherished sporting moment?
Ieuan Evanss winning try against England in the 1993 Five Nations at Cardiff Arms Park. He just kicked the ball past Rory Underwood, beat him from halfway down the pitch and scored the most glorious try. Im watching it now again!
Greatest hope in sport?
That Cardiff City stay up in the Premier League at the end of the new season. It has to be that!
If you could change one thing about sport, what would it be?
Greater openness and transparency around finance and the ethics of sport. I worked with his royal highness Prince Ali of Jordan on his campaign for Fifa presidency two years ago. Much of his campaign was related to transparency, ethics, honesty and to the sport rather than the business of the sport. All of those things struck a huge chord with everything that I want for sport. There is too much corruption, involvement of non-sporting people and players dont have enough of a say. When you see people cheating or taking performance enhancing drugs it wrecks sport. But theyre being pushed to do this by the money side of it.
This week, PR industry leader Shimon Cohen on a passion for Cardiff City, great Wales tries of yore and his hopes for less corruption in sport.
What are your sporting passions?
Cardiff City FC and the Wales rugby side.
How did you first get into sport?
I started going to see Cardiff at a very early age. I was born there, I went to school there and so you went to see the local team. I think the first game I went to see was Crystal Palace and that was a big game in those days in the lower divisions. It was a very different time. You would go to the game because it was a fun, family experience. There was none of the thuggery that came later. If youre born in a sporting town with one football club you fall into it. I got the bug.
Read more: My Sporting Life – Lawyer Simon Leaf on refereeing, London 2012 and darts
Do you also participate in sport?
No. But I watch a lot of sport and I work in sport so Im more than an armchair fan!
Neil Warnock guided Cardiff City back into the Premier League this year (Source: Getty)
Most cherished sporting moment?
Ieuan Evanss winning try against England in the 1993 Five Nations at Cardiff Arms Park. He just kicked the ball past Rory Underwood, beat him from halfway down the pitch and scored the most glorious try. Im watching it now again!
Greatest hope in sport?
That Cardiff City stay up in the Premier League at the end of the new season. It has to be that!
If you could change one thing about sport, what would it be?
Greater openness and transparency around finance and the ethics of sport. I worked with his royal highness Prince Ali of Jordan on his campaign for Fifa presidency two years ago. Much of his campaign was related to transparency, ethics, honesty and to the sport rather than the business of the sport. All of those things struck a huge chord with everything that I want for sport. There is too much corruption, involvement of non-sporting people and players dont have enough of a say. When you see people cheating or taking performance enhancing drugs it wrecks sport. But theyre being pushed to do this by the money side of it.
