VIENNA, June 4, 2024 - German football coach Felix Magath, 71, was the international guest at this year's Sports Media Austria Congress in Saalbach-Hinterglemm. The former Bayern coach strongly criticised the chaos surrounding Thomas Tuchel's successor: "This has damaged German football," said the man who became European champion in 1980 and scored the 1-0 winning goal for Hamburger SV in the European Cup Champions Final 1983 against Juventus.

Magath believes that Germany has a good chance of going far at their home EURO. "At least the semi-finals," the former striker is optimistic. But he sees one nation as a secret favorite. "A team like Portugal could become European champions," Magath thinks.
 

One of the highlights of the congress with about 80 journalists from Austria and guests from Germany, Slovenia and the Czech Republic was the presentation "250 days until the Alpine Ski World Championships 2025 Saalbach-Hinterglemm", where the organisers talked about the status of the preparations and athletes such as Austrian Vincent Kriechmayr, double world champions 2021 in Cortina d´Ampezzo, also answered questions. And a talk on the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris with qualified Austrian athletes was also not to be missed.

There were also two honours. The General Assembly appointed Wolfgang Winheim an honorary member by acclamation. Winheim, 77, was editor of the Viennese daily newspaper "Kurier" for decades and still writes a column today. He was also a member of the SMA board for many years. And Michael Kögler from ORF (Austrian Broadcaster) won the main prize at the Sports Media Austria Award 2024 - presented by Coca-Cola. His video "Der Kaiser wird 70" ("The Imperator is 70") about Franz Klammer's 70th birthday was chosen by the members.