Rainer Kalb

Rainer veal (* 29. May 1954 in Erkelenz ) is a German football - a journalist who since 1988 with only brief interruptions for the information service Sport (SID) reported as a freelance writer. He specializes in international football, FIFA , UEFA and media coverage.

Calf grew up as a first-born son of a traveling climber of mine Sophia Jacoba in today Hückelhoven district Doveren on. He is the five years older brother of Rolf Kalb , who is also a well-known sports journalist (commentator for Eurosport ) and specialist book author .

Life

Kalb, who originally wrote under the abbreviation “raka”, began his career with short reports on local football, mostly on the district league , for the editorial offices of the Rheinische Post in Erkelenz and Mönchengladbach . After graduating from high school in Erkelenz in 1972, he studied German language and literature and philosophy at RWTH Aachen University for six years and then went to Paris as a student at the Sorbonne for a year to prepare his thesis there (degrees: "Maîtrise ès Lettres" at the Sorbonne and the 1st state examination for teaching in Aachen). His original aim was the teacher , but eventually he decided yet for sports journalism and turned his hobby into a career. After a traineeship in the Düsseldorf central editorial office of the Rheinische Post, he moved to the local editorial office in Mönchengladbach. In 1980 he went to the kicker sports magazine and became an editor in Nuremberg . International football became his working topic. Kalb has been on site at almost every World Cup and European Championship tournament since the 1982 World Cup. For many years he accompanied the German national soccer team at almost every one of their games.

In 1986 he started his own business . He moved to Munich and became the FC Bayern - Insider . Through his SID work, he wrote about the Munich Club for almost all of the major daily newspapers. From 1988 to 1996 Kalb worked as a national team reporter for the SID. In 1996, together with Armin Gastl and other journalists, he founded the Munich sports agency Sport Media Service (SMS) , from which the Internet websites F1Total.com (1997–2000) and its successor Motorsport-Total.com (since May 2000) emerged. Together they were responsible for a CD-ROM by Jürgen Klinsmann and the first Internet appearances by Oliver Kahn and Sebastian Deisler before they were discovered by corporations. Nowadays, Kalb’s main topics are TV rights, sponsorship stories, international football events, the Bundesliga and the European football cups . Rainer Kalb is considered the great expert on French football in Germany. When France Football was voted Europe's Footballer of the Year, he was the only German sports journalist who was allowed to vote.

He has lived in Saint-Rémy-la-Varenne on the Loire in France since 2003, has been writing under the pseudonym "René Veau" and is known locally as "le journaliste allemand" (the German journalist). He is also recognized as a football expert in his wife's home country and wrote for the popular sports daily L'Équipe and the specialist magazine France Football until the end of 2008 . In particular, his direct contacts to Michel Platini , Zinédine Zidane , Franz Beckenbauer and Lothar Matthäus make Kalb a frequent contact for the media in both his homeland and his adopted home. For around 20 years he has been writing a column that appears every Wednesday in the Münchner tz . Rainer Kalb is the duo friend of UEFA President Michel Platini.

Quotes

“Football is like real life. With football you can explain the world, understand life. There are winners and losers. There are attackers and some who just defend. You have rules. Anyone who does not comply will be whistled back. Sometimes someone makes a mistake. He will then be punished. "

literature

• Fascination Football (Hardcover), Copress (1997), ISBN 978-3-7679-0567-2 ; Copress (2nd edition from 1999), ISBN 978-3-7679-0569-6 .
• DSF World Cup Guide France 98. Including atlas and travel section (paperback), Hallwag Karten Verlag (1998), ISBN 978-3-8283-0307-2 .
• 100 years of Borussia Mönchengladbach - The Borussia Chronicle (hardcover), by Werner Jakobs, Rainer Kalb and Markus Aretz, Rheinsport networking (1999), ISBN 978-3-934702-00-4 .
• The Champions League (paperback), Copress (2001), ISBN 978-3-7679-0793-5 .

Web links

• Hans Groob: Boules as a contrast to football . Rheinische Post , October 18, 2016.