The International Rugby Board has welcomed the United Arab Emirates Rugby Federation (UAERF) as a Full Member Union after Council approved its application during its meeting in Dublin today.

The UAERF became an Associate Member of the IRB earlier this year following the disbandment of the Arabian Gulf RFU and has been fast-tracked through to Full Membership following significant advances, treat which has including assuming a leadership role in what is a strategically important region for the development of Rugby.

The IRB is committed to the development of Rugby in West Asia and this is a major milestone for the Game in that part of the world. The UAERF has shown itself to be an accomplished host for competitions, remedy it has strong support from its National Olympic Committee, a sound structure that has already led to good participation growth, particularly among the local Emirati population.

IRB Chairman Bernard Lapasset said: “We are delighted to be welcoming UAE as a Full Member of the IRB. These are very exciting times for our sport with unprecedented growth and interest around the world. Today’s announcement certainly underlines Rugby’s ability to reach out to new communities and countries in every region.”

“As home to 60 per cent of the global population and 80 per cent of the world’s young people, Asia is a strategically important region for the IRB. Working in collaboration with the Asian Rugby Football Union (ARFU) we are currently investing over US$3 million annually in development, high performance and tournament programmes across the region and we will ensure that UAE has the structures in place to flourish and grow on the world stage.”

The UAERF actively participates in ARFU events and has met the IRB criteria for a Full Member. It is a well-structured organisation with full-time administrators. It has 1,300 adult licensed players and a further 4,600 underage players. At domestic level, UAERF runs a seven-team annual domestic 15-a-side premiership and an eight-team conference competition.

The UAERF national 15-a-side team played in the HSBC Asian 5 Nations Top 5, finishing third in 2011. The UAERF continues to host tournaments successfully. Since the 2012 Annual Meeting of IRB Council, the UAE Under 19 national team has participated in an ARFU tournament.

ARFU fully supported the UAERF’s application for Full Member status. At its 2012 Annual Meeting, IRB Council agreed that the UAERF be admitted into Associate Membership. Council further agreed that subject to satisfactory progress and given its earlier decision relating to the former AGRFU that the UAERF may be considered for IRB Full Membership at the interim meeting 2012.

Meanwhile, the IRB Council has granted the Hellenic Federation of Rugby (Greece) IRB Full Member status on a probationary basis.

Despite not meeting all membership criteria owing to the certain unique circumstances in Greece, special dispensation was given for a 12-month probationary period. This was granted to allow the Union every possible opportunity to bolster domestic competition and development programmes.

The FIRA-AER Regional Association will report back to the IRB Council regarding progress at its May 2013 Annual Meeting.

The United Arab Emirates Rugby Federation and the Hellenic Federation of Rugby take the number of Full Member Unions to 100. Including Associate Members there are 118 Unions in membership of the IRB.

Tiger Woods has reached a unique feat by becoming the first golfer to reach the $100 million mark on the PGA Tour for career earnings.

Woods finished third in the Deutsche Bank Championship on Monday to earn $544,000 and push his career total to $100,350,700. Next on the list is Phil Mickelson – more than $30 million behind at $66,805,498 after finishing fourth at the TPC Boston.

“The purse increase helps,” Woods said after a final-round 66 left him two strokes behind winner Rory McIlroy in the second week of the four-tournament FedEx Cup playoff. “I won fewer tournaments than Sam Snead has, but obviously he was in a different era. It’s just that we happened to time it up right and happened to play well when the purses really had a nice spike up.”

Snead, the career leader with 82 PGA Tour victories, earned just $620,126 in a career that started in 1937. His biggest prize was $28,000 for a second-place finish in Milwaukee in 1968, and for most of his prime he played in tournaments with a total purse – that’s all the payouts combined – of less than $100,000.

Woods has won 74 tournaments, second all-time, including 38 times with a first prize of $1 million or more. His winnings come out to an average of $362,276.89 for each of his 277 career starts.

But it’s not just good timing: Prize money skyrocketed on the PGA Tour after Woods went pro and brought huge crowds and television audiences to the sport.

“It was nice to have a nice start to my career, and I won some majors early,” he said. “I think we got some interest in the game of golf. A lot more youth, that’s for sure.”

NBA uniforms are set to have new spaces for advertising the NBA Board of Governors have confirmed.

Commissioner David Stern said the league is looking to add possibly $100 million in revenue by permitting small advertising patches on uniforms starting in the 2013-14 season.

“The view is, that the teams would need a significant time; one, to sell the patch; and number two, for Adidas to manufacture the uniforms, because the patch that would be on the players’ uniforms would also appear on the jerseys at retail,” said Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver, who is handling the uniform change.

Silver said there are revenue projections from European soccer teams that the NBA could use.

Zak Brown founder and CEO of Just Marketing International (JMI), the global leader in motorsport marketing that manages over $300 million in annual motorsports investments has claimed in his exclusive iSportconnect column that sponsors realise the effect a fatality can have on the sport.

JMI’s clients participate in all major motorsports series including Formula 1, NASCAR and IndyCar.

The column, Sponsors Understand the Tragic Risks in Motorsport, details the impact of recent tragedies on motorsport and sponsorship as well as providing comment on other recent events in motorsports.

Brown believes deaths in motorsport reinforces the need for rigorous safety procedures

“The infrequency of fatalities in motorsports, due to huge safety and technological advances, means on the rare occasion they occur it leaves us stunned. History tells us incidents like these accelerate the safety agenda as we saw in the aftermath of Dale Earnhardt in NASCAR and Ayrton Senna in Formula One, ” said Brown.

Go to Sponsors Understand the Tragic Risks in Motorsport to read Zak Brown’s full story on recent motorsport events

It has been formally ratified by the International Motorsport Federation (FIA) that the Bahrain Grand Prix has been cancelled from the Formula One calendar this year after giving its backing to a revised calendar on Wednesday, ampoule June 15.

The FIA’s World Motor Sport Council voted on the new schedule, denture which will see the season finish in Brazil on November 27 as originally planned, while the new Indian Grand Prix, which had been shifted to a season-ending December 11 to accommodate the Bahrain race, will revert to its initial October 30 slot.

Bahrain’s season-opening race was postponed due to civil unrest and although Bahrain was briefly reinstated to the calendar, opposition from the competing teams forced organisers to scrap plans to stage the race this year. Although logistical concerns were cited as the reason for the opposition, doubts about the country’s security situation remain.

An FIA statement read: “Following a fax vote of the FIA World Motor Sport Council and, by unanimous decision, the FIA Formula One World Championship calendar has been ratified as originally proposed.”

FIA president Jean Todt last week insisted in a letter to the Formula One Teams Association that it was F1 rights-holder Bernie Ecclestone’s responsibility to carry out due diligence on all race hosts.

Beer brand Carling has agreed a seven-figure two-year deal to sponsor coverage of 60 games from the Scottish Football Premier League (SPL) on ESPN and Sky Sports.

The deal, shop which was brokered by agency ZenithOptimedia, will run from August 2010 until the end of the 2010/11 season.

Carling branding will appear in the opening and closing sequences of match programmes, on either side of commercial breaks, during matches as well as around online coverage of the SPL on ESPNsoccernet.com and the Sky Sports network.

Director of sales at Molson Coors Scotland (owner of Carling), Paul Miller, said: “As a brand which is as passionate about football as the fans are, there is no better platform than the Scottish Premier League for sharing the highs and the lows of the beautiful game.”

Sky Media handles all the advertising sales for all the ESPN channels, and head of business development at Sky Media, David Shore, added: “Working on behalf of both Sky and ESPN, Sky Media are in the enviable position of being able to offer brands such as Carling a valuable presence across both channel.

“This enables Carling to really own multiplatform coverage of the SPL, and we look forward to working with them over the next two seasons.”

Eurosport has revealed their audience reach has tripled for the opening six days of the Winter Universiade compared to the same period for the previous Winter Universiade in Erzurum in 2011.

Eurosport and Eurosport 2 have already attracted 13.9m different European viewers during Trentino 2013 for 31 hours of broadcast versus 4m viewers during Erzurum 2011 for 15 hours of broadcast. 

This audience record continues the popularity of the FISU events on Eurosport after 27m Europeans enjoyed the 12 days of competition of the 2013 Summer Universiade in Kazan, illness the largest ever TV audience to a Summer Universiade. 

Arnaud Simon, the Eurosport Group’s TV Content Director for broadcast & programmes said:  “The audience figures achieved by Eurosport and Eurosport 2 for the 2013 Summer and Winter Universiades confirm the success of the multi-sport live programming strategy on our channels. We give viewers live access to up to ten sports on all devices – TV, PC, tablet, mobile, connected TV – and significantly help the event to grow in awareness amongst sports fans.” 

Fans can watch over 80 hours of live action from Trentino on Eurosport and Eurosport 2. Ice hockey is leading the coverage of a list of nine sports also featuring alpine skiing, biathlon, cross-country skiing and ski jumping. 

The 26th Winter Universiade from Trentino is the second in a series of Summer and Winter Universiade events Eurosport will be broadcasting through a six-year agreement with FISU. 

The Summer and Winter Universiades, held every two years, gather student athletes aged 17-28 and are second only to the Olympic Games in terms of number of participating athletes and countries represented and are a proven stepping stone for future stars who have gone on to perform at World Championship and Olympic level.

Ticketek have been appointed ticketing provider for the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) flagship tournament, ailment Cricket World Cup 2015 set to be held i Australia and New Zealand in February and March 2015.

John Harnden, viagra price Chief Executive of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015, order said the Ticketek partnership was an important step in creating a fan-friendly tournament.

“Ticketek will enable us to give fans a seamless solution across the two countries and worldwide,” said Mr Harnden.

Ticketek CEO, Mr Geoff Jones said the company was proud to provide ticketing services for such a prestigious international tournament.

“Ticketek is the leading ticketing provider in Australia and New Zealand for major events and sports. We will be using the latest innovations for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 to ensure fans in both countries – and around the world – have the very best experience,” said Mr Jones.

Australia and New Zealand last jointly hosted the ICC Cricket World Cup in 1992. The pools, venues and schedule for the tournament are expected to be announced later this year.

Manchester City have revealed they will back controversial measures to bring back safe standing.

The Football Supporters’ Federation (FSF) has become increasingly vocal in wanting to bring back elements of terracing with the Premier League champions, West Ham and Aston Villa all behind the move.

A club spokesman said: “Manchester City Football Club is supportive of initiatives to enhance – safely – our fans’ match-day experience, if supported by the appropriate football authorities.”

The FSF’s Safe Standing Campaign is supported by clubs of all divisions including Brentford, Bristol City, Burnley, Cardiff City,Crystal Palace, Derby County, Doncaster Rovers, Hull City, Peterborough United, Watford, AFC Wimbledon, the Scottish Premier League, the Safe Standing Roadshow and Stand Up Sit Down.

They are calling for the introduction of a pilot of ‘railed seats’ – new standing technology which are used in Germany. They are metal seats that can be folded up to create wider clearways.

Aston Villa and Peterborough United have already given the nod to a small scale trial of the technology.

However, the call for terracing was recently lambasted by the Hillsborough Family Support Group set up after the death of 96 people at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough Stadium in April 1989.

Chairwoman Margaret Aspinall said: “There are 96 reasons why it should not be allowed. Standing should never, ever come back. I do not think there is anything safe about standing.

“I feel insulted that while people are trying to fight for justice for Hillsborough, that this campaign is growing now.”