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Telegraph to appoint Clissitt as Head of Sport

The Telegraph group is expected to name Ben Clissitt as its Head of Sport.

Clissitt was linked with the Telegraph job in January, immediately after it was announced that he was taking voluntary redundancy at The Guardian.

According to sources at Telegraph Media Group, the sports department was informed of the appointment yesterday. Clissitt is expected to take charge of the sports operations at the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph and telegraph.co.uk from next month.

Until January this year, Clissitt had spent more than a decade in various roles at Farringdon Road, including sports editor of the daily paper and later as head of the sports departments of The Guardian, Observer and their website.

Clissitt, 43, is expected to report to Telegraph executive editor Mark Skipworth, although he will have an expanded role now that Skipworth is responsible for producing the Saturday newspaper each week. Effectively, Clissitt replaces David Bond, who this week started working as BBC Sports Editor.

Clissitt had been approached for the Head of Sport job at the Telegraph two years ago, but then opted to stay with the Guardian.

His new role is expected to involve developing the Telegraph‘s multi-media sports offering and negotiating rights deals. Last month, the Telegraph “narrowcast” coverage of athletics’ world indoor championships from Qatar, the first time a sports event, other than football, has been shown via the internet by a national newspaper website.

Clissitt was unavailable for comment.


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