Supporters of fan-owned football club FC United of Manchester have raised over £1.5m in community share income, online leaving just £71, cure 000 of their £1.6m shares target to raise to help fund a community sports facility in Moston, cialis pills north Manchester. 

The club has received planning permission from Manchester City Council to build a football ground and community facility in Moston, north Manchester, and is looking to raise £1.6m of the £4.6m cost from an innovative community share offer. Raising capital through community shares is a unique development in English football and has been recognised as offering a real alternative to the way football is run and financed and offers genuine social benefits to local communities. 

FC United general manager Andy Walsh, said: “Raising over £1.5m in the current economic climate has been a Herculean effort and we believe is the largest amount ever raised by supporters independently. With 95% of our share target now achieved, and brilliant progress made on other funds such as our Development Fund, we just need a final push to raise the remaining £71,000 by 15 March, which will unlock other grant funding and enable us to start building in Moston. We are asking anyone who shares our vision of bringing football back to local communities to back us by investing in community shares and giving us that final brick in the wall.”

“By buying shares, investors will be supporting a better way for football to deliver genuine community benefit – one that is owned and run by supporters and committed to wider community and social development and financial sustainability. Our groundbreaking development will create a positive and lasting legacy in Moston, creating new sports and non-sports facilities for the area for generations to come.” 

The FC United community share scheme has a minimum share purchase of £200 and is open to all investors, whether individuals or organisations. The share issue has been given advance approval by the HMRC Enterprise Investment Scheme and subject to personal circumstances this allows individuals to claim tax relief of up to 30 per cent on the amount that they purchase in the share scheme.

“Our share scheme is an excellent opportunity for those who wish to invest money to generate social and economic benefit,” added Walsh.

by Ismail Uddin

The International Olympic Committee have reiterated their stance and have rejected Indian calls Thursday to drop Dow Chemical Co. as a sponsor of the London Games because of its links to the 1984 Bhopal gas leak disaster.

“We were aware of the Bhopal tragedy when discussing the partnership with Dow,” IOC President Jacques Rogge said in a letter to the Indian Olympic Association. “Dow had no connection with the Bhopal tragedy.”

Dow is sponsoring a decorative wrap that will be installed around London’s Olympic Stadium.

Dow bought Union Carbide in 2000. Union Carbide’s Bhopal plant is blamed for the deadly gas leak that killed an estimated 15,000 people and injured half a million.

Critics argue that the purchase makes the U.S.-based company responsible for lingering groundwater contamination and other issues.

“Dow did not have any ownership stake in Union Carbide until 16 years after the accident and 12 years after the $470 million compensation agreement was approved by the Indian Supreme Court,” Rogge said in the letter.

“The court has upheld this agreement twice since then, in 1991 and 2007. We understand that this is being reviewed yet a third time by the Indian Supreme Court and we are aware of Dow’s position in this matter, and of the sensitivities of all parties.”

Rogge said the IOC only enters into partnerships with organizations that it believes work in accordance with the values of the Olympic movement.

“Dow is a global leader in its field of business and is committed to good corporate citizenship. The company has supported the Olympic movement for over 30 years, providing support and bringing industry-leading expertise and innovation to the Games.

“We do hope that the Indian Olympic Association is recognizing this, while we appreciate the difficult situation you are facing in your country,” Rogge said.

Despite Rogge’s letter, the Indian body maintained its position that the Dow sponsorship should be scrapped.

“We want that the IOC should understand and appreciate the feelings and sentiments of the victims and drop Dow as sponsors,” IOA acting president Vijay Kumar Malhotra said, adding that he now wanted the Indian government to take a stand on the issue.

Dow’s stadium wrap will be hung in strips from the rafters of the steel-latticed stadium in east London. Dow got involved after Olympic officials had scrapped plans for the wrap because its price tag of $11.4 million had been deemed too expensive at a time of economic austerity.

by Ismail Uddin

Nike new black kit for the England rugby team was in the middle of controversy as officials warned if the numbers peeled off like they did against Argentina on Saturday then England would be fined.

The new Nike black second strip was revealed in August along with its all white counterpart.

The tournament organisers said they would be seeking assurances from England that there will be no repeat in Sunday’s Pool B encounter with Romania. 

An England spokesman, who would not confirm whether the same numbers would be used against Romania, said: “Nobody has contacted us yet. They know we will sort it out.”

Facebook is to measure London 2012 Olympic Games’s impact on brands participating with the Olympics and Paralympics.

The social network giant, which has in abundance of 750 million active users around the world, intends to track how sponsorship of London 2012 by major brands like Coca-Cola, Visa and Lloyds TSB influences consumers habits, the Financial Times (FT) reports.

Facebook will track how news spreads around its web pages, run polls to see how marketing messages have changed sentiment around this or that brand. This analysis will allow brands to make changes if their ads fail.

Kathy Dykeman, Facebook’s lead on measurement for Europe, Middle East and Africa said in the interview to FT: “Going into the Olympics next year, it’s hard to quantify what the word-of-mouth [benefit] of sponsorship is. Capturing who is telling the stories and what impact it’s having will help us going into 2012.”

Facebook research and analytics team has already run the same initiative at the football World Cup. According to a Facebook poll, it was found that videos by Umbro, the England kit sponsor, make people who saw them more likely to buy its sportswear than those who did not.

Earlier this year, Facebook launched a platform for its advertisers – both current and prospective ones – to tag brands on photos in the same way users tag other people.

Other social networks also implement such techniques of brand impact evaluation. 

Some traditional experts argue that such poll techniques lack sophistication and balance, because respondents on social networks are self-selecting and results can be distorted. However, online marketing has been underestimated by Olympics sponsors in previous years and Facebook knows what it is doing.

Ross Brawn, owner of the Brawn Formula One team, has ruled himself out of the running to become the new chairman of the Formula One Teams’ Association (FOTA) later this year.

McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh is the current chairman of FOTA, and took over from Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo in December.

Brawn said: “I have enjoyed my two years as head of the technical group and I think that is enough for anyone.”

Under rules of the chairmanship, candidates can only come from teams that have previously won a championship title.

This means that potential successors to Whitmarsh could be Mercedes GP’s Brawn, Renault’s Eric Boullier or Williams’ Adam Parr or Frank Williams.

 

Aggreko, the global leader in rental power and temperature control solutions, is providing power generation and climate control for this year’s U.S. Open Championship, which will run June 13 – 16.

This is the thirteenth time Aggreko has been selected as the temporary utility provider of the tournament, which is hosted this year by the Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, Pennsylvania.

Aggreko designed a power and cooling solution that will enable the sold-out crowd to enjoy the tournament in safety and comfort, without detracting from the beauty of the surroundings. The supplied equipment was customized specifically for golf tournaments and large-scale spectator events.

“It’s a pleasure to be able to work with the USGA for the thirteenth time,” said David Prince, Senior Events Project Manager, Aggreko North America. “Each project we design is unique, and Aggreko’s dedicated events team has developed a custom temporary power and cooling installation to ensure the comfort of all participants attending this spectacular event.”

Aggreko North America has a long history of providing power to high-profile events, including presidential inaugurations, several national sporting events, and the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games.

Global events agency Jack Morton Worldwide has been appointed to deliver the Opening and Closing Ceremonies for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. 

The Organising Committee of Glasgow 2014 confirmed, sale it had awarded the contract to the agency whose track record includes the Opening and Closing Ceremonies for the Athens 2004 Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games in Manchester 2002 and Melbourne 2006, as well as the ceremonies at the FIFA 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

The agency was also tasked with delivering the live celebration sites at key locations across London for the Royal wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton.

Director of Public Events at Jack Morton Worldwide and Head of Ceremonies for Glasgow 2014, David Zolkwer, said the company was “thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Glasgow 2014 to deliver unique 21st Century ceremonies that will capture the true spirit of the city and the region. I’m particularly looking forward to engaging with both the creative sector and the extended community to create ceremonies that make Scotland proud and inspire the watching world.”

Jack Morton Worldwide will conceive, plan and deliver both the Opening Ceremony which takes place on 23 July 2014 in front of a live audience of 60,000 at Celtic Park and the Closing Ceremony which will be held at Scotland’s National Stadium, Hampden Park, before a live audience of up to 44,000 on the 3 August.

Both ceremonies will be viewed by a potential international TV audience of more than one billion, an unparalleled opportunity to showcase Glasgow and Scotland on a global stage.   

Jack Morton Worldwide will have a budget of £14m to deliver both events and the company says it will soon begin the search for talent in Glasgow and across Scotland to help bring these iconic moments to life.

Shaun White, a two-time Snowboarding Olympic gold medalist in the Winter Games is optimistic Skateboarding will be included in the Summer Games soon.

White who is also a skateboarder said: “I would love to compete; that would be the ultimate experience to compete in winter and summer. They’re talking about (including skateboarding in) 2016 in Brazil, but I don’t know.”

 

Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has announced that Government is contributing £3million to The Football Association’s national football centre, story St. George’s Park.

This funding will be used to help increase the number of qualified coaches in the country which, cough along with other specific initiatives, viagra order will also encourage more people from Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) backgrounds to gain the necessary credentials for coaching and managerial positions at the top of the game.

Chairman of St. George’s Park, David Sheepshanks, said: “St. George’s Park has been built primarily to benefit English football, but its capacity to add value in extending opportunities for all in areas of coach education, sports medicine and high performance, will provide significant benefits for the wider sporting market.

“We are extremely grateful to the Minister of Sport, Hugh Robertson, for his support for St. George’s Park even from before he was in office. I am delighted that the Government are partnering with us in this enormously exciting venture from which we hope all of English sport will benefit.”

FA Chairman, David Bernstein, added: “I thank the Government for the strong support of St. George’s Park. When it opens later this year, it will provide an inspirational boost to our development work across all communities.”

St. George’s Park is the training home of the 24 England teams, and a national coach education, development and sports medicine centre for football, sport and business. The 330-acre site is situated in the heart of the country in Burton-Upon-Trent and is due to open in late summer 2012.

by Ismail Uddin