"Right now a sports newspaper is not sustainable without football, but good stories will make other sports start to have more visibility". Santi Nolla, director of Mundo Deportivo, reflected on the role of the media in sport and on some current issues, such as Messi's departure, at the Sports and Society Forum of the Olympic Studies Centre of the University of Navarra.

After thirty years as director of Mundo Deportivo, Nolla reviewed the evolution of sports communication, and reflected on the excess of information, due in part to the large number of channels: "We newspapers have to maintain the information and help to interpret it. Nowadays there are too many impacts from many different places. We need to group them together and help interpret that information. The press can do this, and I think it is their obligation, to offer information that is not manipulated".

At the same time, looking back on his career, he highlighted the great progress made by the press in recent years: "The digital sports press touches on issues, such as the role of women in sport or solidarity, which did not happen so much in the paper press before.

For all these reasons, he believes that, sooner or later, the sports press will adapt to the reality of paid digital content: "I believe that in the end paywalls and subscriptions are going to impose themselves and I think it is good that they are doing so. But that requires a leap in the quality of the information on offer".

When asked about Messi's departure from Barcelona last summer, Nolla pointed out that it was not good news for the club: "It was necessary for Messi to stay for at least one more year, because this change was too abrupt". On the other hand, he assured that he would have accepted the CVC loan, "although I understand that Barça didn't want to", he said.

In his visit to Pamplona, Santi Nolla also held a meeting with Communication students at the University of Navarra, where he gave them the keys to his work.

Point of meeting of the sports agents of Navarre

The Sport and Society Forum, organised by the Olympic Studies Centre of the University of Navarra in collaboration with ADESP and sponsored by Caixabank, aims to be a point of meeting that favours dialogue between the main sports agents in the region, generates proposals for improvement and promotes good relations between people related to sport. Since 2016, it has offered 17 sessions in Pamplona and Madrid with leading personalities from the Spanish sporting world.