head of communications, 1. FC Union Berlin
After 14 years in the cinema business Christian Arbeit joined his favourite football club 1. FC Union Berlin on a professional level in January 2009. He quickly developed a communications department that would fit the needs of a football club writing one of the most impressive success stories in Germany since then. The last 15 years have seen Union Berlin’s rise from a 3rd division club to a top flight club and Champions League participant of the 23/24 season. The club is not only a football club anymore but a multi channel entertainment asset with a huge following on various platforms.
Arbeit also set the sails for two remarkable media projects: Germany’s high profile football journalist Christoph Biermann was given the chance to join the men’s football team as a staff member for the club’s very first Bundesliga campaign in 2019/20, publishing his experiences in a book Germany’s football had never seen before.
Two years later German film maker and director Annekatrin Hendel joined the club for two and a half years to discover not the secrets of the sporting side of football but digging deep into the daily workloads of the people who run the club. The documentary made it to the big screes of German cinemas in spring 2024.
As the future is unwritten next already stories wait to be told soon.