Axel Springer to launch football daily newspaper

Publisher Axel Springer (SPRGn.DE) plans to launch Germany’s first daily sports newspaper next month, focusing on soccer as it seeks to offset a decline in sales at its established print business

Fussball Bild will be the Germany’s first sports daily. Spain has a soccer-focused daily called Marca, which is published by Unidad Editorial and is the country’s largest daily newspaper with 2.24 million copies.

Italy’s 120-year old La Gazzetta dello Sport sells about 215,000 copies a day, its publisher RCS Media Group (RCSM.MI) wrote in its third-quarter report. France also has a sports daily in the form of L’Equipe.