La Liga side Real Betis officially named MIGUEL TORRECILLA its new sporting director for the next four seasons. He "will be introduced" on Wednesday. Torrecilla currently works for Celta Vigo (AS, 5/2). ... Outgoing UAE cricket coach AAQIB JAVED has "signed on with" Pakistan Super League side Lahore Qalandars as its director of cricket. And though "he has not made an application to succeed WAQAR YOUNIS as Pakistan coach, elements within the Pakistan Cricket Board have not eliminated him from their thinking." Aaqib confirmed last month that "he will leave his role with the UAE at the end of May after four successful years in charge." He was "initially considered a leading candidate to replace Waqar, who left the position after a poor World Twenty20 campaign." But he "withdrew his interest after the PCB advertised the vacancy; Aaqib believed he had been offered the post" (THE NATIONAL, 5/2). ... Sports media property One Championship announced the addition of three key senior hires to join its exec leadership team. PITHAMBAR GONA joins as One Championship's CFO, KEVIN SIM as head of media rights sales and KEVIN MATAS as head of marketing. Gona was most recently a managing director at Blackstone, where he worked for approximately seven years. As Blackstone's first investment professional in Singapore, Gona launched and led the firm's private equity business in Southeast Asia. Hailing from Red Bull, Matas is a seasoned marketing and social media exec who has spent his career building, launching and developing various brand and media properties. Most recently, Matas was in charge of Red Bull's social media platform in the U.S.: social media strategy, programming, content development, community management and analytics across various platforms (with a collective audience of 50 million followers). Sim is a media exec with a focus on media rights sales in Asia. As a sales and marketing exec, Sim was part of the pioneering team of MP & Silva as its third employee, and played a role as marketing director in transforming the upstart into one of the world's int'l sports media distribution companies (One Championship).
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