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

The Football Association has gotten plaudits for their handling of Fabio Capello’s resignation by British sports minister Hugh Robertson.

The minister, who only a year ago called football the “worst-governed sport in the UK”, said the FA had “acted decisively and with enormous integrity” in standing their ground against Capello after he criticised their decision to take the England captaincy away from John Terry due to his July trial for alleged racism.

Robertson told Press Association Sport: “I don’t think the FA could have the England manager in conflict with them over such an important principle going into the European Championships.

“The moment Capello went on Italian TV and openly criticised them then there was no going back – either the FA had to get him to retract what he had said or he had to go.

“The FA have acted decisively and with enormous integrity. If they had simply tried to sweep this under the carpet they would have been attacked for being weak.”

Robertson had special praise for FA chairman David Bernstein, who went over Capello’s head to remove the captaincy from Terry until the outcome of his trial where the denies racially abusing QPR’s Anton Ferdinand.

“I do think the FA have handled it well and David Bernstein is a class act,” added Robertson.

“There is a view that he [Terry] should have been suspended as soon as he was charged but they thought that the trial would be before the European Championships.

“Once it became clear last week that it would be afterwards they took the entirely pragmatic view that although innocent until proven guilty it would be impossible to carry out such a high-profile job as England captain with all that hanging over him.”

by Ismail Uddin

Write your view on Capello’s resignation here

England rugby team’s World Cup sponsor Land Rover is set to send an official letter of complaint to the RFU about the behaviour of the players.

English player indiscipline has grabbed the headlines in New Zealand with Mike Tindall, Dylan Hartley, and Manu Tuilagi in particular being subjects of negative press.

Land Rover, sponsors of England Rugby and the World Cup, has complained to the IRB to express about the team’s attitude.

Land Rover invited 11 players for company day at Muriwai Beach near Auckland, where they given off-road use of Land Rover Discoverys and Range Rover Sports to use off-road use at.

The company complained that the England players were “arrogant and rude” to their staff, showed no concern for the vehicles and broke the speed limit.

Footage from the sponsor day was intended for use in advertising and promotional material but is believed to be unusable because of the poor attitude shown by the English players.

Land Rover has refused to comment publicly. A spokesperson said: “Any discussions are part of our commercial partnership and therefore private.”