After ten years, SRF presenter Rainer Maria Salzgeber is giving up his role as presenter of the Swiss national football team. As a guest on Claudia Lässer's talk show, the 55-year-old talks about his reasons.
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- After ten eventful years, Rainer Maria Salzgeber is stepping down as presenter of the Swiss national football team matches. As a guest on Claudia Lässer's talk show, the 55-year-old explains how his decision came about.
- Salzgeber reveals the role Matthias Hüppi played in his decision and admits: "Of course it hurts a little, you would probably prefer to present everything until 90."
Rainer Maria Salzgeber has been entertaining SRF audiences in various roles for 30 years now. In 2014, Salzgeber took over from his sponsor Matthias Hüppi and has been accompanying the Swiss national football team as a presenter on location ever since. This is now over.
"I've been able to follow the national team in all sorts of ways. As a flash interviewer at the beginning of my career, or when I was allowed to take over Mattias Hüppi's job for the last ten years," Salzgeber looks back in the talk show "Lässer" and explains: "Hüppi stopped because he wanted to take the next step to FC St.Gallen. That was also an inspiration when I made the decision to give up the national team."
During the European Championship in Germany last summer, Salzgeber began to think about saying goodbye. "I thought about it for the first time in Berlin, during the 2:0 win against Italy. At the end we celebrated with the fans, Beni Huggel did the wave. I went home with the emotion: it probably doesn't get any better than this," says the man from Valais.
"You'd love to host everything until 90"
Afterwards, Salzgeber, who also presents the "Donnschtig-Jass" in addition to the national team appearance, analyzes his situation and realizes: "At some point, I won't be able to get it all together. I'd rather make a decision that I can make before someone makes the decision for me."
Saying goodbye is not easy for Salzgeber. But: "It's right for me. Because I had such great times with the national team - and I'm looking forward to what I can do with the Thursday Jass," says Salzgeber. "Of course it hurts a little, you'd probably like to present everything until you're 90 and then die healthy. But that's not possible."
