HATTINGEN - The Secretary-General of the Confédération Européenne de Billard, Helmut Biermann (Germany), has been awarded with the 'NRW-Sportplakette' in recognition of his outstanding achievements in sport. The highest sport award of the government of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), the largest state of the Federal Republic of Germany, was presented by the Prime Minister in a ceremony in Hattingen (Germany).
The award was introduced in 1959 and is one of the most important honours for voluntary commitment in sport. So far only Wolfgang Rittmann and Christian Rudolph have been awarded as representatives of billiards.
The 61-year-old Biermann is a senior civil servant in the vacation phase of pre-retirement and has been Secretary-General of CEB since 2013.
Helmut Biermann has been involved in billiards for more than 40 years and has participated in organizing most of all prestigious national and international tournaments situated in Germany. In addition to his long-term executive board activities at various levels, he has been president of the Billiard Association of North-Rhine Westphalia since 1996 and representative of about one-third of all organized German billiard players.
For more than 25 years he has been the representative of Billiards in the umbrella organisation of all sport associations in North Rhine-Westphalia and since 2012 deputy spokesman of the Standing Conference of Associations.
During his term the modernization of the federations has been started with the establishment of structural changes. Relations with the most important partners have been expanded for the benefit of all kinds of games, subsidies have been increased and the federations have been set up in a more future-oriented manner.