NBA player Raja Bell will visit India from July 12 to 17 to participate in basketball events in Delhi to increase the popluarity of  basketball and the NBA.

Bell will attend the Junior NBA/ Junior WNBA National Skills Challenge Finals at Thyagaraj Stadium on July 14. The school-based programme has taught basketball to 10,000 students and 800 coaches in five Indian cities.

Bell will lead an NBA Cares clinic at Thyagaraj Stadium on the same day in conjunction with Love in Action – a New Delhi-based NGO that uses basketball to provide life-skills education to children from slums in East Delhi.

On July 15, Bell will hold  clinic for select Mahindra NBA Challenge participants, the largest community league in India, at DPS Vasant Kunj.

He will train with India’s Senior Men’s and U18 Men’s National Basketball Teams at the IG Stadium in Delhi on July 16 and 17.{jcomments on}

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has appointed sports psychologist Magbool Babri to work with its players.

Pace bowler Mohammed Amir, who is serving a five-year ban following the spot-fixing scandal in the 2010 Lord’s Test against England, had his first session with Babri today.

“I had a good two-hour session with Amir today and the good thing is he responded well and realises how he has damaged himself and Pakistan cricket with his actions,” said Babri.

A PCB spokesman said the board decided to appoint a sports psychologist to try to prevent regrettable behaviour by young players.

“Amir’s case is a classic one. He went down the wrong path and took the wrong decisions because of his young age. We hope the players can be reformed with proper counseling,” the spokesman said.

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Lou Imbriano former Chief Marketing Officer of The New England Patriots and iSportconnect Advisory Board member has suggested today the NFL did not do everything in their power to promote the social media side of the Super Bowl and thus lost out on a potentially lucrative commercial opportunity.

Speaking from his exclusive article with iSportconnect, Imbriano questioned the NFL’s tactics: “Why is it that the NFL dropped the ball on promoting and monetizing their social media initiatives during this year’s Super Bowl? Social media promotion for the league, in-game, was conspicuously absent. Where was the @NFL moniker on the field? Why were there no #NFL, #sb46 or #SuperBowl hashtags included in the broadcast during play? Why didn’t the NFL insist that while Roger Goodell was being interviewed, that his Twitter handle, @NFLCommish, be included in the graphic under his name? Why wasn’t there a co-branded sponsor hashtag, such as #NFLPepsi, to support a promotion or initiative and generate revenue? How could the NFL leave their hashtags or Twitter handles off press conference backdrops?”

Imbriano who is now Professor of Sports Marketing at Boston College acknowledged the exponential amount of tweets about the Superbowl but refused to give plaudits to the NFL.

He said: “I did notice that the #SuperBowl hashtag was promoted on Twitter itself, so there were people thinking about the NFL’s social media strategy, but even that left me scratching my head. I would think that particular hashtag would trend regardless of being promoted or not. To top things off, the Social Media Command Center was the brainchild of the Host Committee in Indianapolis, and not the NFL.”

To read more on what Lou Imbriano has to say go to his expert article here.

The Turkish chairman of The Soccer Club Fenerbahçe Aziz Yıldırım has denied to a court any involvement in the match fixing scandal engulfing Turkish football. At the same time he has revealed he will step down from his position once the issue has been concluded.ue.

The new season is scheduled to start in two weeks and there is no plans for an alteration however a final decision will be made on July 29th.

This the most serious match fixing scandal within Europe with many other investigations throughout the Soccer world taking place in recent time.

A number of arrents have been made within last season’s champions Fenerbahçe. They have been alleged to have fixed the result of their last day of the season clash with Sivasspor last season

If Fenerbahçe are found guilty, they may lose their title from last season, and possibly face relegation.

FIFA, who are the Sports World governing body has a range of sanctions at its disposal, including the suspension of associations, though this would seem unlikely at this stage.

The Russian capital of Moscow is set to replace London as the host city for next year’s Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) General Assembly after the British Olympic Association’s (BOA) cash problems forced it to pull out.

The BOA had to give up the opportunity last month, to stage one of the most important events on the Olympic Movement’s calendar because they could not afford the US$8m it would have cost to stage.

Now that Moscow has offered to stage the event, the deal is expected to be finalised when a delegation from the ANOC travels to Russia at the end of July to finalise arrangements for the Assembly, which is due to be held between April 12 and 17.

The bi-annual event is attended by more than 200 National Olympic Committees and is held in conjunction with a meeting of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) ruling Executive Board.

It is the second time in recent weeks that Moscow have stepped in to offer themselves as a replacement for a major event after they were chosen to replace Tokyo as the host city of the World Figure Skating Championships.

Russia is due to host several important Olympic meetings in the build-up to the 2014 Winter Olympcis and Paralympics in Sochi.

They include this year’s European Olympic Committees (EOC) General Assembly and the annual SportAccord convention in 2013 with both events due to be held in Sochi.

Police at the International Cricket Council (ICC) World Cup have clashed with hundreds of fans once again, this time seeking tickets for India’s World Cup showdown against South Africa on Tuesday, highlighting the country’s inability to handle the huge demand for seats.

Twelve days after similar scenes were witnessed in Bangalore when fans were lathicharged when caught in a frenzy for the host nations game against England, stick-wielding police battered fans in front of the ticket counter at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium.

Ticket sales for the February 19-April 2 tournament have proven to be a major headache for Indian organisers, who are unable to meet demand for the high-profile matches, especially those featuring the home team as well as the April 2 final in Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium.

Tuesday’s episode is likely to raise further questions about the way tickets are being distributed in the cricket-crazy nation.

Commonwealth Games England has appointed Ian Metcalfe, the Chair of the Professional Game Board of the Rugby Football Union (RFU), as their new Chairman.

He succeeds Sir Andrew Foster who has held the position since 2007 and led the organisation through the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in 2010 and Glasgow in 2014, where Team England topped the medal table for the first time in 28 years.

Metcalfe, a double Cambridge Rugby Blue, is the former managing partner of Wragge & Co, one of the UK’s leading law firms.  He previously played rugby for Sale and Moseley, captaining the latter between 1985 and 1987. He toured New Zealand with England in 1985, playing three times on that tour and also represented the Barbarians four times.

Metcalfe joined the RFU Council in 2006 and has held senior roles since 2007, serving on the Boards of the RFU and of ER 2015, the organising body for the 2015 Rugby World Cup. He has a wide interest in a variety of sports and served on the Committee of Warwickshire County Cricket Club for 23 years, before being made an Honorary Life Member in 2013. He is also a Vice President of Moseley Rugby Club.

Sir Andrew Foster, Chair of Commonwealth Games England, said: “We are delighted to appoint Ian Metcalfe as the new Chair of Commonwealth Games England. Throughout the rigorous selection process he impressed with his passion for sport, business acumen and clear ideas about how to build our strategy for the coming years.

“I am confident that Ian will continue to create opportunities for our athletes to make their best contribution at the Commonwealth Games as we have just seen in Glasgow, and to build excellent relationships with Sport England, our major partner, who are ensuring that we are well supported at every stage of our development.”

Ian Metcalfe, Chair designate of Commonwealth Games England, added: “I am honoured to succeed Sir Andrew as Chairman of Commonwealth Games England. I was lucky enough to attend the Glasgow Games in person and saw first-hand the passion that Team England embodies.

“I look forward to leading CGE to the Commonwealth Youth Games in Samoa in 2015 and St Lucia in 2017, and the next Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast, Australia, in 2018.”

Ian’s priorities will include participating in the organisation’s Glasgow 2014 review and playing an active role in the appointment of an Interim Chief Executive Officer to succeed Adam Paker who is moving to be Chief Executive at the Amateur Swimming Association in the autumn.

The Ukraine Triathlon Federation have continued to back that the ETU Sprint European Cup in Dnepropetrovsk will go ahead as planned on 24th May 2014.

Political uncertainty has engulfed Ukraine in recent months, order however, Panarin has assured all athletes, coaches, and National Federations preparing for the race that it is completely safe to travel to Ukraine and compete.

The Secretary General of the Ukraine Triathlon Federation, Eduard Panarin said in a statement: “As per our agreement with the LOC in Dnepropertrovsk and the Ukrainian National Federation we will do our best to make this event a success.

“We’d like to assure everyone that all the efforts needed to ensure a safe and successful race are well underway.

“We are sure our European Cup will provide the ultimate sporting emotion and a wonderful experience in one of the biggest cities in Ukraine.

“We look forward to welcoming the triathlon family to our City and I look forward to meeting you all there.”

The race in Dnepropetrovsk will be an historic moment as the first ever ETU European Cup race to be held in the country.

ETU President Renato Bertrandi said: “We are in constant contact with the Ukraine Federation in order to have news regarding the race in Dnipropetrovsk.

“The National Federations is working hard to make it happen and the ETU will do everything in its power to keep the race on the due date.”