Showtime has been acquired by Glory Sports International (GSI), owner of rival kickboxing championship Glory World Series.

The landmark deal will effectively place all of the world’s top kickboxers, or stand-up fighters, under the same promotional umbrella. GSI will absorb other assets from and take over management of ‘It’s Showtime.’

“This is what the world of stand-up fighting has been waiting for – all the top fighters competing in the same series each time to find out who is really the very best,” said GSI MD Marcus Luer, who also owns Asian sports marketing company Total Sports Asia.

The Glory World Series is the world’s premier kickboxing league, staging events across the globe and offering up to $1,000,000 in prize money to successful fighters in the 16-man grand prix tournaments which are open to only the very best fighters in each weight class.

With television deals spanning every continent plus an online streaming system, Glory claims to be the world’s most widely-broadcast sporting organisations already.

“By adding ‘It’s Showtime’, Glory has truly established itself as the No. 1 kickboxing league in the world. This is what the fans have been waiting for and we are here to deliver it. Glory will soon announce a new series of events and a modernized tournament format for the rest of the year and for 2013,” continued Luer.

Owned and operated by Glory Sports International (GSI), the organisation has offices in Holland, the United Kingdom, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. Its personnel include prominent hedge-fund investors, the pioneering sports marketing agency Total Sport Asia and several executives from the Golden Glory team.

Northern Ireland’s north coast will now not just be known for its beautiful scenery, it will recognised as the site for a newly built £100 million golf complex after proposals on building the resort were given the green light.

More than 10 years after the first planning application was lodged, the developers have overcome National Trust resistance to begin work on the site close to the famous Giant’s Causeway in County Antrim.

The new Bushmills Dunes Golf Resort & Spa will include a championship links, a five-star 120-bedroom hotel and 75 villas. The project could create at least 360 jobs.

Construction could start later this year in a bid to have the course and accommodation ready by the summer of 2014.

The investment is headed by a New York-based Northern Ireland management expert and scientist Dr Alistair Hanna, 67, originally from Holywood, Co Down – the home town of US Open golf champion Rory McIlroy.

British Open champion Darren Clarke lives a few miles from the proposed course, close to neighbouring Royal Portrush golf club where the Irish Open will take place this summer.

Graeme McDowell, a friend of both players and winner of the US Open in 2010, also comes from Portrush.

The first planning application was submitted in 2001 and then renewed six years later.

There was considerable opposition by the National Trust, owners of nearby Giant’s Causeway, a Unesco world heritage site where a new visitors’ centre is due to open this summer after another lengthy planning process.

by Ismail Uddin

FIFA, football’s governing body has promised a decision will be made on whether goal-line technology will be used after a International Football Association Board (IFAB) meeting on July 2.

The game’s world governing body also confirmed the preceding IFAB meeting next month would include a discussion on whether to allow teams to make a fourth substitution during matches that go into extra-time.

In addition, the March 3 gathering in Surrey will look at proposed changes to the rule which sees players sent off and suspended for denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity in instances which also see a penalty awarded.

Those are among eight proposals and amendments to the laws of the game on the agenda.

The experiments into goal-line technology and additional assistant referees will be discussed next month.

But a final decision on the future of both will be taken at a special meeting which is planned for July 2, the day after the European Championship final.

In an interview in December, Blatter said technology was inevitable.

“We’ll do it. FIFA cannot accept a repeat of what happened in South Africa when a ball was 70cm over the line and was ruled out,” he said, referring to Lampard’s goal.

However UEFA president Michel Platini, seen as the favourite to succeed Blatter, is sceptical about technology, instead favouring the deployment of extra match officials behind the goal.

“What scares me is that if we start to use technology for things that have little point, we will also move onto offside technology, because there are five offsides per match,” Platini said recently.

“The (FIFA) Board will decide but I have the right to disagree and I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

The Rugby World Cup 2011 have launched their official Mobile App which will be available to download for free for Blackberry, pills PlayBook, iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows Phone 7.

Available in English, French and Spanish, it is the best way to stay in touch with all the latest action and news from Rugby’s showcase event.

Users can follow all 48 matches on their device with live match text commentary and score updates, half time and full time video highlights, Tournament news, statistics and much more.

For fans attending the world’s third largest sporting event the Rugby World Cup 2011 App would provide good exclusive match content. The App will also provide a rolling calendar of events for festival activities in New Zealand and will even locate the events that are nearest to their location.

RWCL Tournament Web Manager Dominic Kelly said: “Rugby World Cup 2011 will be the first truly ‘social’ Tournament. We have a facebook page with over 1.1 million likes, a dedicated Twitter page, You Tube channel and now an official App to ensure that fans attending the Tournament or following from their homes will be able to interact with Rugby World Cup 2011.”

“This free interactive App will deliver everything that both fans and the media will need to stay up to date with the Tournament and truly enjoy the Rugby World Cup experience.”

The president and founder of construction company the Altrad Group, Mohed Altrad, has become the majority shareholder of French rugby union’s Top 14 team Montpellier Hérault.

The new investment will see Altrad provide an initial figure of around US$3.4m, and a total of $ 8.5m over the next three years to replace current majority shareholder, the Nicollin Group.

Altrad conducted a full audit of Montpellier Hérault and spoke with the local authorities, the Nicollin Group and high-ranking officials within the club’s structure before making the decision to invest in the financially unstable club, which recently was threatened with demotion to Pro D2 due to its spiralling debts.

Altrad stated: “I wanted to have access to everything. We had to reassure the supervisory bodies last Friday. The club needs stability in terms of management and financial matters. The philosophy is to combine all the good interests of the club around a project that has clarity and thoroughness. Today, the sporting performance is successful. We must now capitalise on this great enthusiasm, sustain the club over the long term and remain at the top.”

The new majority shareholder has strong ties to the club; his stepfather Vezinhet Andre is president of the team’s general council and former Hérault president Thierry Perez is a close friend. The new investment is expected to boost Montpellier Hérault’s budget for next season to around $24m.

Ron Walker has revealed he will step down as Australian Grand Prix chairman.

Walker, a stalwart of the almost twenty-year-old Albert Park race and a close friend and political ally of Bernie Ecclestone, will retire after the 2015 event.

“I’m 75 this year and it’s good governance to let someone fresh take the reins,” he told News Limited publications in Australia.

Walker, a former Melbourne lord mayor and a multimillionaire businessman, selected his own replacement, current cricket world cup chairman John Harnden.

“It’s not public knowledge,” said Walker. “We haven’t made the announcements, because we wanted to continue to do what we do without any fanfare.”

The fact that Harnden will only take over for the 2016 race is a clear sign that Melbourne wants to keep the grand prix beyond its 2015 contract.

Walker, who was recently battling lung cancer, revealed last week that he has negotiated a basic new deal with Ecclestone.

“I think the foreplay is over so to speak and it’s now a case of talking to the government about whether it is worth it or not,” he is quoted by the AFP news agency.

“I think everyone in the government wants the race. The assessment is going to be made over the price,” Walker added.

He told News Limited: “We are asking for three extra years. We are not like the Arab states and some other countries — we have to be very careful the way we spend taxpayers’ money.”

The World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) have opened its first dedicated national baseball and softball venue in Britain as it continues it campaign to be included in the 2020 Olympic Games. 

The facility, which features a full size international standard baseball field and three softball/youthbaseball fields, has been designed to encourage young people and women and girls into the sports from Britain’s vibrant multicultural communities.

The demand for the new facility also highlights the increasing popularity of the two sports amongst women and young people from a wide variety of backgrounds, in the United Kingdom and across Europe, which has seen rapid growth in softball and baseball over recent years in these important, non-traditional new territories and markets.

The opening ceremony for the venue on Saturday at Farnham Park, in Slough, near London, was the culmination of planning by BaseballSoftballUK, and funding from Sport England, the UK Government’s sports development body.

The state of the art facility was also jointly financed by the Baseball Tomorrow Fund of Major League Baseball (MLB) which, along with other professional leagues around the world, is providing important support and backing for the WBSC campaign for inclusion in the 2020 Olympic Games.

“The Baseball Tomorrow Fund is thrilled to award BaseballSoftballUK this grant that assisted in the creation of a new facility at Farnham Park Sports Ground,” said Cathy Bradley, Executive Director of the Baseball Tomorrow Fund. “It is exciting to have a new complex in the United Kingdom and our hope is that a facility such as this will continue to introduce kids to the pastime and grow the games of baseball and softball.”

The new facility will also support the creation of a new after-school program in the community and a girls fast-pitch softball league. The complex will be considered the “home” of Britishbaseball and softball and will host local, regional and national tournaments and training for more than 1,000 youth, ages 8-16, year-round.

“This is a momentous achievement that will further attract athletes to our sport in the UK and underpin baseball and softball’s continued rise in Europe and worldwide emergence,” said WBSC co-Presidents Riccardo Fraccari and Don Porter.

“We fully support the single baseball/softball venue concept, as WBSC is proposing a streamlined shared venue for the 2020 Olympic Games. The forward-thinking Farnham Park project highlights the significant benefits and realities of baseball and softball’s partnership and long-term sustainability,” the co-Presidents added.

A similar modern concept baseball and softball venue is set to be completed in March 2014 at “Park 21” in the Amsterdam metropolitan region, while in May 2012, the first international standard ballpark in France was inaugurated just south of Paris in Senart.

If included, softball and baseball would be unlike any other sport at the 2020 Olympic Games, bringing new and unique sporting skills and qualities to Olympic fans and viewers as the only bat and ball sport at the Games, helping to balance and diversify the Olympic programme and Olympic Games experience.

“The World Baseball Softball Confederation regards the Olympic Games as the highest honour and greatest goal for every athlete and sport, and we will place our full global resources and passion for the Games at the service of the Olympic Movement,” WBSC co-presidents Fraccari and Porter said.

American gymnast Jordyn Wieber has joined the Wasserman Media Group to help her in her pursuit of multiple Olympic medals at London 2012.

Wieber had chosen not to sign with an agency for most of the run-up to the Games. She leaned on her parents and USA Gymnastics for support in negotiating her current agreements with AT&T, medical Kellogg’s and Procter & Gamble. All three of those companies sponsor USA Gymnastics.

Dan Levy, Wasserman vice president of action sports and Olympics, will work on Wieber’s business opportunities. Tasha Schwikert, a former Olympic gymnast who won bronze in the 2000 Sydney Games, also will work with Wieber. 

“We’d been recruiting her and the family for a while,” Levy said. “With it being an Olympic year, it was one of our priorities. What was attractive to her and them was that we’d never been in the space before. We’re a player in Olympic marketing but we’ve never had a gymnast before.”

The agency also will work with Wieber’s mother, Rita, who is being outfitted by White House Black Market in London and has a book coming out soon called “Gym Mom.” 

Wasserman’s other top Olympians include swimmer Rebecca Soni and the Lopez family, which competes in taekwondo. The company recently reorganized its action sports and Olympic divisions to make them a single group with offices in Los Angeles, Carlsbad, Calif.; Raleigh, N.C.; New York; and London.