The Final Report of the Special Investigation Committee looking into claims made by BBC journalists last September of corruption involving the London 2012 Olympic Games has been welcomed Dr. Ching-Kuo Wu, President of the International Boxing Association (AIBA) as it has exonerated the organisation.

The committee, chaired by the chairman of AIBA’s disciplinary committee, has declared the BBC report – which claimed an Azeri businessman bankrolled AIBA’s World Series of Boxing in return for two guaranteed Azeri medals at London 2012, to be “groundless and unsupported by any credible evidence.”

However the BBC have hit back, insisting they stand by the claims made in the programme, and declaring their intention to continue to co-operate with an independent investigation by the International Olympic Committee Ethics Commission.

The special investigations committee’s statement added: “We have conducted an exhaustive investigation over the past two months and we have concluded that the allegations…were completely without merit.”

The committee accepted that an investment was made by an Azeri businessman, Hamid Hamidov, but said the investment was purely for “commercial purposes” and “the subject of medals had never come up in any discussions or agreements.”

The AIBA President met on Tuesday morning with Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to deliver a copy of the Final Report.

The main finding of the inquiry was that the allegations made by BBC journalists in a TV programme of money supposedly having been paid by Azerbaijan’s government in exchange for promises of Olympic gold medals were “groundless and not supported by any credible evidence.”

“We are pleased that after a lengthy investigation, the full facts have emerged and the air has been cleared,” Dr. Wu said in a statement Tuesday. “We welcome the findings of this important process, and are pleased that our procedures and our integrity have stood up to the scrutiny of an independent inquiry.”

The AIBA President also said he has “full confidence” in Ivan Khodabakhsh, the Chief Operating Officer of World Series of Boxing and is “pleased that he has been fully exonerated by the Special Investigation Committee.”

He noted the Final Report had detailed how Mr. Khodabakhsh, whom the BBC claimed had made promises of gold medals, had never actually met the investor, had no role in the negotiations for the investment, and in any case has no role in boxing competition at the London Olympic Games.

Dr. Wu added that within 24 hours of receiving the independent inquiry’s findings, he had presented a copy of the Final Report to the IOC President.

“I wanted to share the full report of the Special Investigation Committee with President Rogge as soon as I received it as this is appropriate,” Dr Wu said.

In a statement to Press Association Sport, the BBC said: “Newsnight is aware of AIBA’s position and we stand by our investigation.

“While we anticipate AIBA making all the evidence they reviewed public, we are continuing to co-operate with the ongoing independent investigation by the International Olympic Committee Ethics Commission.”

The Special Investigation Committee was appointed on 23 September 2011, as soon as a BBC programme, made its allegations.

International sports marketing agency MP & Silva has been appointed by the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) as its exclusive media advisor in a multi-year deal.

The five-year partnership will see IBAF and MP & Silva collaborate on worldwide distribution of all of the federation’s international team portfolio, including the Men’s and Women’s Baseball World Cup.

IBAF and MP & Silva will work together to expand IBAF’s sponsorship portfolio and MP & Silva will provide strategic marketing consultancy and support services to further the sport’s exposure in the USA and the key Asian markets of Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

Andrea Radrizzani, group chief executive, MP & Silva, stated: “We are extremely honoured to be given this opportunity by IBAF to help extend the reach and popularity of baseball around the globe. The prospects for growth are very promising, in Central America and particularly in Asia and, in a strategic partnership with IBAF, we aim to develop a wider international base for this exciting sport and to engage baseball fans in Asia and other key markets more directly.”

Riccardo Fraccari, president, International Baseball Federation, added: “We are pleased to announce our co-operation with MP & Silva and look forward to expanding the distribution and exposure for the sport together. We have millions of fans far and wide and with MP & Silva as our media advisor, we hope to share and foster this global passion for baseball with even more fans around the world.”

Sky Italia has announced it will launch a high-definition channel for its Formula 1 coverage joining their British counterparts.

The Italian pay-TV firm won the rights to live F1 coverage from free-to-air public broadcaster Rai at the end of the 2012 season.

The platform has now launched Sky Sport F1 HD, medicine which will broadcast 10 of the season’s races exclusively live, drug with the other nine shared with free TV – although a free-to-air broadcast deal has yet to be agreed.

The new channel will broadcast 30 hours of live shows on each race weekend and will air the Barcelona winter test event from February 28 to March 3 for the first time in Italy.

NIKE, Inc. today announced its intention to sell two of its wholly-owned affiliate brands – Cole Haan and Umbro – to sharpen its focus on driving growth in the NIKE, Jordan, Converse and Hurley brands.

Mark Parker, President & CEO of NIKE, Inc, said: “We see tremendous opportunity to accelerate profitable growth around the world by continuing to deliver innovation and inspire consumers through the NIKE brand. We also see significant potential in Jordan, Converse and Hurley, which have unique consumer relationships that complement the NIKE Brand.*

“Divesting of Umbro and Cole Haan will allow us to focus our resources on the highest-potential opportunities for NIKE, Inc. to continue to drive sustainable, profitable growth for our shareholders.”

Cole Haan, which specializes in casual and dress leather footwear and bags, was acquired by NIKE, Inc. in 1988. The company is based in New York. Umbro is a football (soccer) specialist brand based in Manchester, UK, acquired by NIKE, Inc. in 2008. The process of divesting of these two businesses will begin immediately, and is expected to be complete by the end of NIKE, Inc.’s fiscal 2013 (May 31, 2013).

The readiness of the venue to host the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Istanbul in March is in doubt.

The event, which is due to take place between March 9 and 11 and has already attracted entries from a record 170 countries, is seen as an ideal opportunity to showcase the Turkish city’s bid to host the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics.

But work on the Ataköy Athletics Hall is behind schedule and a test event scheduled for last month had to be cancelled.

Can Korkmazoğlu, the general coordinatior of the Championships, though, insisted that there was no panic.

“Actually, we never worried the hall would not be ready, we have only been forced to cancel the races we promised to the International Associations of Athletics Federations (IAAF),” he told Hürriyet Daily News.

“Apart from that, we had events with two small-scale organisations scheduled that we had to cancel, but now we are running smoothly. We will begin operations inside the hall with the Turkish Indoor Athletics Championships January 27 to 29.”

Istanbul had been awarded the Championships by the IAAF in 2007.

The event was originally scheduled to be held at the Sinan Erdem Dome in the Ataköy district of Istanbul, but after the decision to use the Sinan Erdem Dome as the main court for the World Basketball Championship in 2010, it was decided to buld another hall next door to stage the World Indoor Championships.

Korkmazoğlu blamed the IAAF for the delays, claiming that it was nothing to do with financial difficulties in Istanbul.

“There were no such problems, and we were helped by the state at every stage. We were just forced to start later than planned because the project changed several times according to IAAF demands,” he said.

Korkmazoğlu is confident that the event will prove to be an outstanding success, with nearly half of the 15,000 tickets available sold already.

“As of last week, 47 per cent of the total tickets were sold out, with the main focus being on Saturday evening and Sunday. This was expected as it is when most of the finals are scheduled for,” he said.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Monday scrapped the contract with its broadcast rights holder Nimbus for defaulting on payments and forfeited the bank guarantee amount of $388m.

Nimbus held TV rights for all of the BCCI international and domestic matches played at home.

BCCI officials said the contract was terminated because Nimbus had not paid the 50% advance for both the recent England and West Indies series.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the BCCI’s Working Committee in Delhi.

Nimbus, which renewed its rights for Indian cricket in October 2009, had requested a delay in payment. The development will affect the finals of the domestic Ranji Trophy, which begin on December 16th.

The termination of Nimbus means that the rest of the domestic season would not be televised. It was also learnt that the working committee members were unhappy about World Series Hockey (WSH) being promoted in the air time scheduled for cricket.

Nimbus released a statement claiming that it had “acted in compliance of its contractual obligations”

“Nimbus Communications Ltd (Nimbus) has seen reports in the media in relation to cricket rights licensed to Nimbus by Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

“Given the confidentiality provisions of such contracts, Nimbus is unable to discuss details with the media, but can confirm that it has acted in compliance of its contractual obligations and variations agreed between the parties from time to time.

“Nimbus is working towards achieving full resolution of any differences that may have arisen between the parties and is hopeful of a reasoned conclusion of these in the coming weeks.

“Obviously, it has fully reserved all its rights and options, including invoking the arbitration process if need be.

“No further statement will be made by Nimbus in this regard till its discussions with BCCI are concluded in the coming weeks.”

Apart from the current payment, the BCCI and Nimbus also had a long-pending ‘issue’ over radio rights. Nimbus was not happy with the All India Radio’s offer and had asked the BCCI to deal with them directly.

Numbus owns the NEO Cricket channel launched in 2008. It had exclusive broadcast rights for all International and domestic cricket played in India from 2006-2014.

To read more on this topic go to iSportconnect’s discussion: Where next for BCCI sponsorship?

IEC in Sports, the major international sports marketing agency, has secured rights to distribute six-event Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) tournaments across Asia Pacific in 2011, following the re-appointment by key organizers in Malaysia, New Zealand, Thailand, Uzbekistan, China and Indonesia.

Tournaments include WTA Kuala Lumpur, WTA Auckland, WTA Pattaya, WTA Tashkent, WTA Guangzhou and the season-ending WTA Tournament of Champions in Bali.

China Tennis Association (CTA) has again partnered with IEC to exclusively manage all television rights for WTA Guangzhou through to 2013, with Deputy Director Xiao Ning adding: “We have been working together for the past seven years. We are very confident in the strong broadcast distribution on a pan-Asia and global basis, that IEC achieves.”

IEC in Sports MD Asia, Middle East and Africa Karl Samuelsson stated: “We are delighted to witness the rapid development of tennis in China. In a few short years, China has gone from a nation without much of a foundation in this sport to a place producing world-renowned female players such as Li Na, Zheng Jie, and Peng Shuai, with Li Na now inside the top 10. These young Chinese tennis talents prove that China has begun to shine in this global sport.”