Mohamed Bin Hammam, presidential challenger to current FIFA incumbent Sepp Blatter, was left a frustrated after being denied a visa to attend the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) Congress in Miami today, May 3, leading the Swiss to take a major step towards re-election as head of world soccer’s governing body for a record breaking fourth term.

The Qatari president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) was expected to go head to head with Blatter in an attempt to secure the all-important support of CONCACAF’S 35 member nations. However, in a blog on his website, the challenger revealed that he was unable to attend the Congress “due to issues beyond my control”.

It has since been learned that he was not able get a visa in time even though other members of his campaign team were successful in doing so. Sources stated that Bin Hammam had expected to travel to Miami straight from Paraguay where he attended yesterday’s CONMEBOL congress without any problems. Instead, Bin Hammam flew to Paris on his way home to his native Qatar.

Bin Hammam’s non-appearance in Miami will give Blatter a free run in the lobbying stakes and is set to seriously weaken his chances of unseating the 75-year-old Swiss in Zurich on June 1.

It has now been reported that Sepp Blatter it set to move a big step closer to re-election as FIFA boss when CONCACAF’s 35 member associations rubber-stamp a plan to vote as a bloc in support of the current president in elections on June 1.

A CONCACAF spokesman told worldfootballinsider: “It is very probable based on everything that has happened… it’s very likely an official announcement will be made that this is the case,” adding that confederation president Jack Warner had indicated such a decision would be made in recent days.

Warner, one of the FIFA ExCo members involved in recent ticketing scandals in recent years, will today be re-elected unopposed for a sixth term as president of the CONCACAF, and has floated the plan for his confederation to vote as a bloc for months. CONCACAF has tended to vote as a bloc in FIFA presidential elections though the plan to back Blatter must still win the support of the 35 FAs at today’s meeting.

The first London 2012 venue at the Olympic Park has been opened, with the Olympic Velodrome ready for riders ahead of next year’s event and Sir Chris Hoy declared he “can’t wait” for the Olympics after riding on the finished London 2012 cycle track for the first time.

Scotsman and four-time Olympic champion Hoy, was joined by fellow Beijing winners Victoria Pendleton and Jason Kenny plus a team of British sprint stars who are all aiming for London 2012 success. The cycling icon provided a much-needed cyclist’s viewpoint to the designers and architects about what is needed for the venue in Stratford, east London.

He stated: “Having been involved in a very small way in the design process in the early stages, it’s amazing to see the velodrome finally completed, and to be able to have ridden on it gives me a feel for what it’s going to be like in a year and a half’s time. I can’t wait!”

The VeloPark is expected to come in on budget at around £93m (US$150.3m). The facility is a 6,000-seat velodrome, complete with its sweeping roof designed to reflect the curve of the cycling track.

Building work began on in March 2009 and the development has now been handed over from the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) to the London 2012 organisers with tasks now ahead to install the temporary facilities, such as lighting and scoring, needed to turn it into a world class Olympic and Paralympic venue.

London 2012 chairman Lord Coe described it as “a stunning venue built for champions”.

The construction took a team of 26 carpenters eight weeks to install the track and more than 350,000 nails were used to on its 56km of timber surface with organisers billing it as the world’s fastest cycling track, thanks to a range of tailored features including the track geometry plus the temperature and environmental conditions.

ODA chairman John Armitt added: “In delivering the velodrome on time and to budget we have completed our first Olympic Park venue and our biggest milestone to date.

“The striking architecture of the velodrome and the medal prospects of our world-leading cyclists mean the venue will become one of the defining images from the Games, and a landmark new building for future generations to enjoy.”

After the Games, the velodrome will be used by elite athletes and the local community and will include a cafe, bike hire and cycle workshop facilities.

Squash is looking to boost it’s 2024 inclusion bid to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) at the Hong Kong Open.

Alex Gough, chief executive of the Professional Squash Association, told BBC Sport: “This is a lot more of a winnable race than it has been before. When you look at the list of criteria that all the sports in the race have to meet, I think we are now in a position where we pretty much tick all of those boxes.”

Seven sports are in the running for inclusion in the Games in eight years. They include squash, climbing, karate, roller sports, baseball/softball, wakeboard and wushu.

Following the IOC’s feedback in 2009 after failing to make it to the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Games, squash now has redesigned its glass court for improved spectator viewing, added under-court lighting, arena music, video reviews for referees, introduced HawkEye, in-play statistics, more televised matches, and there are now iconic locations for matches including the Egyptian pyramids and Grand Central Station.

Gough said: “We have had a lot of messages from the IOC about making the sport more commercial, improving it for television, and so on. A key thing is that presentation. Look at the ATP Finals at the O2 – that is a classic example, with all that lighting and making it a really excellent spectator experience for the paying public. Those are the sorts of lessons we are trying to pick up all the time as a sport that’s trying to be innovative and learn from bigger sports.

“We have really improved the sport for TV over the last two or three years. It has been a big push forward, and we are trying to improve it week after week”.

Gough added, “At the core of squash is that the athletes are among the fittest on the planet. They can play two-hour matches with pulse rates of 180 beats per minute for the whole time.

“Squash hasn’t been great at showcasing its athletes, until now. We have always had the players but they haven’t been placed in the professional-looking events that they deserve. The sport has caught up”.

Squash is to submit it’s bid presentation on December 19 and the sport added to the Olympic program in 2020 will be announced September 2013.

British heptathlete Jessica Ennis is reportedly set to break through the barrier of £1 million ($1.56) in sponsorship earnings this year.

In the process, impotent she will become the first female athlete to do so.

Ennis, medicine who will be the favourite to take home gold in her event in London at the Olympics, ampoule also earned £700,000 ($1.1m) last year.

The Daily Mail reports that the 26-year old has earned more than double in deals than her nearest rivals throughout 2012.

Despite missing the Beijing Games in 2008, Ennis has since shot to fame, following her gold at the 2009 World Championships.

The Sheffield-born athlete has a deal with Adidas believed to be worth around £320,000 ($499,920), the biggest sponsorship contract of any Team GB athlete.

It is believed she has potential to earn even more, and Matthew Glendinning, of sponsorship experts Sports Marketing Frontiers, said: “The people around Ennis have done a remarkable job to put her in a potentially winning position on the track and off it.

“However, even they may be surprised at the wave of attention and commercial opportunity that will be unleashed if she wins gold.”

Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) has taken its first step in establishing itself as a major player in the ticketing market and rivaling Live Nation’s Ticketmaster by launching a website for its new ticketing platform, axs ticketing.

On Monday evening (Aug. 22), sports and entertainment giant AEG officially rolled the new ticketing site axs.com. The platform is the first initiative under Outbox Enterprises, a joint venture involving AEG, Cirque du Soleil’s Outbox Technology ticketing business and former Ticketmaster CEO Fred Rosen.

AEG (which owns global events promoter AEG Live) plans to introduce axs Ticketing later this year to events at San Francisco’s Warfield and Regency Ballroom. From there it will expand to other major domestic markets and international territories — as well as sales for larger-sized venues and AEG’s sports teams — through 2012. London’s AEG-owned O2 Arena will transition after the 2012 Olympics.

AEG’s collection of 105 buildings it owns and/or operates is impressive, including the Staples Center in Los Angeles, the Target Center in Minneapolis, the Best Buy Theater in New York, Sprint Center in Kansas City, MasterCard Center in Beijing and Acer Arena in Sydney.

“We’re starting with our own venues; that’s a big task,” AEG senior VP of digital Todd Sims tells Billboard.biz. “Outbox, though, is an independent company. They will continue to go after new clients, independent venues and the like. We have not yet figured out what role axs will play in Outbox clients. But I expect there will be a role we can play there.”

Outbox’s ticketing model is based on a “white label” solution that allows venues to brand their own ticketing operation and own more flexibility on how tickets are sold. Therefore, the white label technology enables AEG to sell tickets under both axs.com and through their individual venue websites.

“For instance, on the website of the Ogden and Bluebird, you’ll be able to go to those sites, find shows and transact all in a very Ogden or Bluebird look and feel. But if you’re coming at it from an [axs.com] standpoint, it’s an axs look and feel,” Sims explains.

Venues using the axs Ticketing service will be the only online destination to purchase tickets for events taking place there, Sims points out. “You won’t be able to buy those tickets elsewhere,” he says. “Given the white label technology, we can form interesting distribution relationships and can create commerce opportunities wherever our consumers are. That might be at the artist level, at the venue level — we might form regional or national partnerships that enable them to sell those tickets as well. But they will not be sold on another core ticketing platform beyond axs.”

Chairman of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Athletes’ Commission, Frankie Fredericks has revealed he wants the Olympic ban on drugs cheats to stay despite a challenge from the United States.

The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) want the rule preventing defending Olympic 400 metres champion LaShawn Merritt from participating at London 2012 to be scrapped and the IOC have agreed to let the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) decide whether the controversial eligibility rule should be upheld.

The CAS has been asked to determine the validity of IOC Rule 45, which bars any athlete receiving a doping sanction of greater than six months from competing at the next Olympic Games.

Fredricks, a member of the IOC’s ruling Executive, believes the lifetime ban should remain in place, stating: “I like the British Olympic Association (BOA) rule which states that if you test positive drugs you are banned from the Olympics for life.”

Fredericks won a total of four Olympic silver medals at the 1992 and 1996 Olympics, one of which was behind 100 metres gold medallist Linford Christie, who was later suspended for two years after testing positive for banned anabolic steroids.

Fredericks added: “If somebody wins an Olympic medal, you want to know that it is clean and that it can never be taken away and obviously that is not the case where drug cheats are concerned.

“There are obviously some people out there that think you can be fully rehabilitated after a two-year drug ban but I am not convinced.

“I think a life time ban is the right incentive to stop drug cheats, to keep them out of the sport and to give more credibility to being an Olympic champion.”

The IOC have stated that the CAS ruling will be widely accepted meaning that sprinter Dwain Chambers could challenge the BOA’s by-law 25 which prevents any athlete with a doping ban from representing Team GB at the Olympics.

The chairman of English Premier League soccer club Birmingham City, Peter Pannu has admitted that concerns over the club’s attendances may lead to a redevelopment of their current home stadium, St Andrew’s, rather than a move to a new stadium.

The club’s parent company, Birmingham International Holdings, has unveiled initial plans for a £20m (US$32.4m) revamp of the Garrison Lane stand at the 30,000-seat St Andrew’s.

Having held talks with Birmingham City Council about the possibility of moving to a new ground since Carson Yeung became the club’s owner in 2009, Pannu has now acknowledged that an average attendance of less than 25,000 does not justify moving to a significantly larger venue.

According to the Press Association, Pannu was quoted as saying: “We haven’t categorically ruled out moving stadia completely but my prime concern is attendances. Our average attendance does not justify building a stadium of 50,000 to 55,000 at this stage.”

He added: “We have ample support from the local authorities but, with current attendances, it is just not right to do that sort of investment. In any case, a lot of our fans want to stay put.”