FIFA has revealed that Football Association of Thailand (FAT) general secretary Worawi Makudi has sent documents to defend allegations of misuse of FIFA funds.

Makudi has strongly denied allegations that FIFA grants were used to build a training centre on land he owns. FIFA last month wrote to Makudi, generic an Executive Committee member, ampoule asking him to respond to allegations of misuse of Goal programme funds in an area in which he owns several plots of land. Makudi has previously told Thai media he had signed over the land to the FAT, ambulance but concerns over a potential conflict of interest could lead to FIFA instigating an Ethics Committee inquiry.

Makudi has now supplied documents supporting his argument to FIFA with BBC Sport reporting that  world football’s governing body will take “a few days” to examine the evidence. Grants totalling £542,000 ($867,384) from FIFA’s Goal programme were used to build Thailand’s national football centre, along with an artificial pitch.

In May Makudi was named in British Parliament by former Football Association chairman Lord Triesman as one of four FIFA members who sought “bribes” in return for supporting England’s failed 2018 World Cup bid. FIFA subsequently dismissed Lord Triesman’s allegations.

Eight Pakistani players have signed up for the ambitious World Series Hockey (WSH).

The Pakistan players, who will participate in this joint initiative between the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) and Nimbus Sport, are Rehan Butt, Zeeshan Ashraf, Mudassar Ali, Tariq Aziz, Adnan Maqsood, Waseem Ahmad, Syed Imran Warsi and Shakeel Abbasi.

The line up from Pakistan includes 3 former captains and a host of current players who have played over 1600 international matches amongst them. 

The International Hockey Federation (FIH), however, still maintains that WSH continues to be a un-sanctioned league since it does not have the approval of the “recognised” national federation, Hockey India.

At the same time FIH has also stated that those players who have signed before 31 March 2011 with WSH will not be banned from participating in official national and international competitions.

Rehan Butt too had a few days back voiced his concerns about the lack of recognition for the event.  

Those issues seem to have been sorted out and Butt, who will lead a team, says he is excited to be an integral part of the action. “I am honoured to be a captain of one of the teams. World Series Hockey will see a face off between the best international and Indian players and I am proud to be a part of this prestigious and highly anticipated event,” said Rehan.

Nimbus Sport COO Yannick Colaco said, “The response from the players and members of the global hockey fraternity has been overwhelming. The top players from the international arena including Pakistan have signed contracts and the league is all geared up to enthral fans with a spectacular display of skill.”

Nimbus states that the WSH will be held from 15  December to 22 January and will involve 176 leading players — Indian and international — who will showcase their talent in 61 matches. It will be a multi-city franchise-based League with players being allocated to the teams based on the internationally accepted and practised ‘draft’ system.

The inaugural edition of the league will comprise eight teams with matches across as many cities, six of which are Delhi, Punjab, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. The remaining slots will go to two off Bhopal, Pune, Rourkela, Ranchi, Manipur, Lucknow and Kolkata.

Green Beacon Solutions, a leading provider of Microsoft Dynamics customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions have announced today that they have been selected by the Miami Marlins, to migrate them from Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011.

Green Beacon Solutions will also provide ongoing managed services support to the Marlins following the completion of the CRM upgrade. 

The Miami Marlins chose Green Beacon Solutions due to their expertise developing and integrating CRM solutions for leading sports organizations, such as the Boston Red Sox.

“Green Beacon Solutions has a strong reputation for designing CRM solutions that integrate with a team’s business process which we believe will help to deliver immediate results for the Marlins’ sales campaigns,” said Andrew Silverman, SVP of Sales and Service for the Miami Marlins. “Selecting Green Beacon Solutions will improve our targeted outreach to fans by taking advantage of the functionality in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 to increase our overall sales and marketing ROI.”

“We appreciate the opportunity to partner with the Miami Marlins to deliver a transparent roadmap that supports their existing objectives while driving toward their future growth,” saidBenjamin A. Holtz, President and CEO of Green Beacon Solutions. “Since we first entered the sports market with the launch of our Sports CRM solution in 2011, we have seen tremendous interest in this solution from a variety of sports organizations. Teams, stadiums and other venues are considering Green Beacon Solutions to design CRM solutions that improves targeted marketing and sales efforts by providing the intelligence needed to increase overall ticket sales and renewals while improving fan loyalty.”

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is the world’s leading customer relationship management (CRM) suite with marketing, sales, and service capabilities to help businesses of all sizes find, win, and profitably grow customer relationships. Microsoft Dynamics xRM opens the traditional view of CRM to encompass “everything”(x) Relationship Management. By leveraging the powerful .NET platform on which Dynamics CRM is built, the entities that CRM encompasses creates entirely new solutions that integrate into existing line of business applications.

The Philadelphia Wings of the National Lacrosse League (NLL) have selected Member Solutions as its online registration and website provider for its youth Spring and Summer 2012 Lacrosse Camps.

“After evaluating several website providers, recipe we decided that Member Solutions provided the Wings with the most effective means of streamlining the Wings camps registration process,” said Wings Director of Marketing, Nikki Varoutsos. “Ease of use and customer interface were factors that contributed to our decision to hire Member Solutions for our website needs.”

Member Solutions’ online event registration software, Event Manager, is used for online registration and marketing, as well as real-time data management and payment processing. The integration of Event Manager and Member Solutions’ Website Manager program enables membership organizations of all kinds to host dynamic websites with built-in automated event registration and management. The event registration application is also fully integrated with Member Solutions Level One PCI-compliant platform for secure payment processing.

Steven Pinado, CEO of Member Solutions, said: “We’re thrilled to have been chosen as the registration and website provider for The Philadelphia Wings Youth Lacrosse Camps. Member Solutions is about helping membership organizations and businesses prosper and grow. We’ve seen countless Martial Arts schools, sports leagues, fitness clubs and membership-based businesses benefit from the Event and Website Manager program’s simplicity and process automation.”

by Ismail Uddin

Next year’s first ever Texas Grand Prix may be in jeopardy after construction of the circuit was stopped following a dispute between Formula One, race promoters and developers of its contract.

A statement from the developers said that the project had been halted “until a contract assuring the Formula One United States Grand Prix will be held at Circuit of The Americas in 2012 is complete. The race contract between Formula One and Circuit of The Americas has not been conveyed to Circuit of The Americas per a previously agreed upon timetable.

“While construction at Circuit of The Americas has progressed as scheduled with over 300 workers at the construction site daily, all work will suspend immediately. The delivery of the Formula One Grand Prix race contract will allow construction operations to resume.”

The announcement follows remarks made by F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone in Abu Dhabi over the weekend to the effect that he would “not put money” on the race taking place given the dispute between the Circuit of the Americas and Tavo Hellmund, who holds the contract to run the race.

“There are two parties,” Ecclestone said. “One is building a track, the other has the contract and they’ve forgotten to talk to each other. I’ve told them they need to get married.”

Earlier in the day Texas State Comptroller Susan Combs revealed that the annual $25m of public funding, which would effectively cover the sanctioning fee collected by Ecclestone and which is deemed crucial to the race’s success, was by no means guaranteed and would certainly not been paid out in advance of the event.

Such fees are usually made well in advance of races and thus far none has been made to cover the inaugural Austin event.

Combs said she was “concerned” by the ongoing controversies and added that the recent announcement of a second race in the United States, in New Jersey, from 2013, could jeopardise the Austin project.

“Additional races have the potential to reduce the number of attendees to a Texas race, thereby decreasing the economic impact,” Combs said.

“The ongoing controversies are a concern and we will continue to monitor them.

“Let me state clearly: We have not paid out any money for the Formula One event. The only dollars that can be spent on the United States Grand Prix are tax revenues attributable to the successful running of a race. The state of Texas will not be paying any funds in advance of the event.”

UEFA President Michel Platini has challenged FIFA president Sepp Blatter to keep his promises for reform with one of the most important days in the world governing body’s turbulent history looming large.

Blatter will on Friday announce his proposals for change, and UEFA president Platini said he hopes the meeting of FIFA’s executive committee will lead to a new era of transparency.

The eight European FIFA members met on Thursday to discuss their strategy to make sure the reforms happen and – in the words of one – “re-establish the credibility of football” after 12 months where FIFA has been rocked by a series of corruption scandals.

The Europeans, led by Platini, will push for Germany’s Theo Zwanziger to be appointed as the head of a new body to implement the reforms, and he has already presented Blatter with his five-point plan for change.

Platini told Press Association Sport: “We hope that what Mr Blatter promised us this time becomes fact, and not just ideas. We hope that we can bring transparency to FIFA but there will be a proposal and we will have a discussion.

“The mood is the same for all of us in Europe, don’t forget that in Cyprus last month the 53 national associations of UEFA asked us to take care of what could happen in FIFA. There were also questions at the Congress in Zurich when some people asked for better governance.

“I am sure that Mr Blatter will propose some new things to the executive committee and we will discuss these.”

Europe will hold more than a third of the votes tomorrow – only 21 members are expected to attend as American member Chuck Blazer is ill, while Thailand’s Worawi Makudi is not attending due to floods in his country.

Platini said he was confident FIFA is heading for a better future, but that football could still thrive despite the problems with the organisation.

He added: “I think so, but don’t forget we played the Champions League final at the same time as the trouble of the FIFA. The football continued and that means we don’t need FIFA to have better football. But FIFA has to have a better image and perhaps after a lot of years of a certain way of how to manage FIFA, perhaps it would be nice to have the new things promised by Mr Blatter.

“I get the impression that Mr Blatter is really motivated to change something – we will see.”

FIFA have been under pressure to change following the corruption scandals of the last 12 months which has seen three FIFA members banned, including presidential candidate Mohamed Bin Hammam banned for life for bribery, and FIFA vice-president Jack Warner resigning a month after being charged with the same offence.

A report published by the New Zealand Government has announced that last year’s rowing World Championships at Lake Karapiro lost $1.8 million.

The event was supposed to make a profit of $417,749.

Sport and Recreation New Zealand (Sparc), a government funded agency, claimed the reasons for the loss relate to shortcomings in governance and inadequate financial management. There was a lack of financial monitoring and no use of commercial acumen. Poor attendaces to the event also contributed.

A Rowing New Zealand (RNZ) company received $1.2 million in Government funding for the event and $500,000 from a Ministry of Economic Development fund.

Sparc chief executive Peter Miskimmin said the review was a damning reminder for those involved in hosting major events in New Zealand, including the Government agencies which invest in them.

“Running events is a complex and risky business, and those who take on the responsibility of hosting them must be careful and accountable,” he said.

“Running a major event requires specific skills and expertise around event management. 

“That must be reflected in the governance and management that’s put in place, and the investment oversight.”

The review was a condition of the Government agreeing to loan $1.1 million in February.

Miskimmin claimed operationally the event was a huge success. 

“But the review tells us they were living beyond their means,” he said.

“The key stakeholders in the event, including the board, have all proactively engaged and had input into this review, and have provided considerable feedback throughout the process.”