Vicente Jiménez appointed editor-in-chief of AS


The board of directors of AS, meeting this afternoon in Madrid, has appointed Vicente Jiménez as editor-in-chief of AS. The journalist, who replaces Alfredo Relaño, is set to take over on June 1. Alfredo Relaño, chief editor of the sports daily since 1996, will remain linked to the group and stay on as honorary president of AS. The board of the newspaper unanimously approved a statement of "recognition and gratitude" to Relaño, "without whose contribution it would not be possible to even begin to understand the importance of AS as the sports newspaper of record in Spain and Latin America."


Vicente Jiménez Navas (Barcelona, 56 years old), holds a degree in Journalism from the Faculty of Information Sciences of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He also completed an executive training course at the IESE Business School and won a scholarship to the United States from the German Marshall Foundation.


Jiménez began his career at El Periódico de Catalunya in 1984. After six years at El Periódico as sports editor, he joined the EL PAÍS newsroom in Madrid, also on the sports desk. In January 1994, he was given responsibility for the supplement EL PAÍS de las Tentaciones. He was subsequently appointed Chief Editor of the Madrid Local News section as well as editor of the Society section. In 1999 he became a deputy managing editor of EL PAÍS.


In September 2005, Jiménez was appointed deputy editor-in-chief of EL PAÍS. During his almost nine-year tenure, the newspaper embraced digital transformation and embarked on the process of adaptation of content to new technologies. EL PAÍS quickly established itself as the leading online news medium in Spanish. Key to this success was the newspaper's commitment to its global presence, which resulted in the opening of new digital editions: the Americas Edition and Brazil Edition.


In May of 2014, Jiménez moved to New York as a correspondent for the newspaper before returning, in February 2015, to Spain to take on the position of managing director of radio network Cadena SER and PRISA Radio's music stations. During his three years there, SER consolidated its lead and forged ahead with digital transformation. In February 2018, Jiménez was named managing director of content for PRISA Radio’s Latin American stations (Colombia, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Panama, United States...).


Alfredo Relaño Estapé (Madrid, 1951) studied at the engineering school Escuela Superior de Ingenieros de Caminos and the Law Faculty, before deciding to pursue studies in journalism. He subsequently graduated from the Official School of Journalism in Madrid and began his professional career at the sports newspaper Marca, while simultaneously working as Madrid correspondent for the Barcelona-based sports paper Mundo Deportivo. He subsequently moved to Pueblo, an evening newspaper, and to Arriba, where he remained until 1976 when he joined the founding newsroom of EL PAÍS as sports editor. He was then put in charge of opening the newspaper's bureau in Andalusia before returning to Madrid as editor-in-chief of sports at the newspaper. In 1987 he moved to Cadena SER, which had been acquired by PRISA, as sports editor, and where he was behind the program El Larguero – to which he appointed José Ramón de la Morena as anchor.


With the launch of Canal + by PRISA in 1989, he became the new TV channel’s sports editor. Here, he pioneered pay-to-view football on Spanish television and launched a new broadcast model of highly successful sports programs, later widely imitated by other Spanish television channels.


In 1996, when PRISA acquired a majority stake in the newspaper AS, he was appointed editor-in-chief. He quickly turned around declining sales – from the previous ten years – and boosted both circulation and readership. In recent years, the sports daily has opened digital editions in Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Miami and several Arab countries. In the near future, more editions are set to launch in Latin America as well as in the Far East.