Sport 2000 International is entering two new markets. It has signed a partnership with a company in Dubai, the Falaknaz Sports Group, for the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and is about to finalize a contract with a Spanish buying group, Base Detall Sport, for the local market. It is also looking at other new markets such as Poland.

Falaknaz has managed a small network of multi-brand stores in Dubai and Abu Dhabi since 2010 under the Emirate Sports banner. It will use the Sport 2000 banner to branch out into other countries such as Saudi Arabia.

Falaknaz is also a major wholesaler, representing companies such as BH Fitness, Mikasa and Prince. It represented Asics in the GCC between 2003 and last year, when the Japanese brand took over the distribution of its products in the region. It recently took on board Stag, an Indian brand of table tennis products.

The international buying group will have a new managing director, Margit Gosau, from March, taking the place left vacant last year by the departure of Harold Rubrech, who reopened the markets of Sweden, Finland and Italy for the group. His responsibilities had been taken on an interim basis by two top managers of Sport 2000 in Austria and Germany, Holger Schwarting and Hans-Hermann Deters.

Gosau, who is 50 years old, began to meet industry executives at the Ispo Munich trade show earlier this month. She worked for ten years for Reebok and Rockport, handling marketing and merchandising while Deters was in charge of Reebok in Central Europe. She has been serving since 2009 as vice president of global brand management for Ecco at the company's head office in Denmark.

Aside from the geographical expansion underway, her priorities in her new job will be to strengthen the group's partnerships with major brands, to raise the visibility of the Sport 2000 banner all over Europe and to help create a more verticalized and digitalized structure, starting with the German-speaking and Benelux countries.

Including Sports Direct International, which is also a shareholder”r, and other major players, Sport 2000 International federates retailers that manage a total of 4,154 stores in 25 European countries. They had a retail turnover of more than €6.6 billion in 2015.