Nike, recipe Inc.  have promoted Scott LeClair to Vice President of Action Sports it has been announced today.

The 47 year-old, anabolics currently the Brand’s VP and GM of Nike Skate and Nike Snow, will be responsible for leading the category as well as for Hurley International, LLC. Nike veteran Roger Wyett, 56, who was previously in the role, has decided to retire.

LeClair joined Nike in 1992 and has led Nike’s skate and snow business since June 2012. He has held previous roles in North America and was GM of Nike’s West Territory based in Los Angeles, before moving to Japan to lead the running category and then the merchandising function. He will report to Jayme Martin, VP & GM of Global Categories.

“We’re very pleased that Scott will lead us forward. He is a proven leader with strong brand expertise and his deep knowledge of Action Sports will be instrumental as we continue to build our business globally,” said Martin.

“Roger is a tremendous leader and his impact over the years at Nike has been significant,” said Trevor Edwards, President of the Nike Brand.  “We wish him all the best in his retirement and want to thank him for all he has done to inspire our teams, drive strong business growth and consumer connections across our portfolio of brands around the world.”

Wyett was most recently responsible for the Nike Brand’s skateboarding and snow businesses, as well as Hurley. Wyett first joined Nike in 1994 and was part of the pioneering team that led Nike into the global football business. He has held a variety of roles, including CEO of Hurley, Vice President of Global Apparel and President of the Affiliates.

As the world descends on London for the Olympic Games an estimated £700 ($1.1bn) million will be transferred into UK pounds by visitors from overseas, anabolics according to currency brokers World First.

“Obviously August is always a busy period for tourism in Britain. However, with the 2012 Games putting London and the rest of the country firmly in the spotlight, the number of visitors this year is set to increase dramatically – meaning an amplified demand for our currency.”

Everyone from tourists to the athletes themselves will require UK currency to get them through their few weeks in the country, and currency companies are set for a busy period trying to manage the demand for sterling during this period.

Visitors from certain parts of the world will see their money go a lot further than might have been the case had the games been put on a year ago, whilst others will have the opposite experience.

For example, people from Eurozone countries will be adversely affected by the falling value of the beleaguered euro, which has tumbled to 4 year lows against the pound this summer.

Whereas €1000 would have bought you around £876 this time last year, that same amount has fallen to around £780 at today’s GBP EUR exchange rate. That’s nearly £100 less.

Meanwhile US visitors will be slightly better off this year, with $1000 buying you around £642 at the present GBP USD exchange rate, versus just £615 this time last year. That’ll get our American friends an extra few portions of Fish and Chips when they’re in town.

Jeremy Cook, chief economist at World First, said: “Obviously August is always a busy period for tourism in Britain. However, with the 2012 Games putting London and the rest of the country firmly in the spotlight, the number of visitors this year is set to increase dramatically – meaning an amplified demand for our currency.”

Goal line technology may be a realistic prospect as FIFA delegates are visiting League One side Rochdale FC’s home ground to see whether a camera system implemented in the goals can tell referees for certain whenever the ball crosses the line

Rochdale’s home stadium, Spotland, stands to take a proud part in a potentially historic development in the game, if Goalminder a creation from two Lancashire-based businessmen passes a series of stringent tests.

The researchers will spend around 13 hours putting Goalminder through its paces in the town, famed more for Gracie Fields than for its footballing exploits.

The FIFA test team spent Tuesday at Southampton’s home, St Mary’s, looking at Hawk-Eye, already used in other sports including cricket and tennis.

But Goalminder, patented in 1990, is different, utilising a total of 24 cameras implanted in the goalposts, 16 of them concentrating solely on the goal-line.

A further eight cameras look outward, bringing the possibility of the use of footage commercially by TV companies and coaches at top football clubs.

Goalminder’s founders say data from the cameras is processed instantaneously by a box behind the goal, and a verdict on whether the ball has crossed the line is transmitted within one second to a referee’s wristwatch.

The strict testing regime is being carried out behind closed doors, but news of the researchers’ visit to Rochdale will reassure football fans that the technology is finally on its way. The Rochdale tests are part of the first phase of trials of nine European-based systems.

Former Manchester United player Lee Sharpe is endorsing Goalminder.

“The technology is there now where if the ball crosses the line, you get a little bleep or a flashing light or something like that straight away then, yeah, I say bring it in,” he said.

“If it’s going to take a couple of seconds to stop and take a look at it then you can’t do it. I think it needs to come in.”

The system’s inventor, electrician Harry Barnes told Sky News: “If you take my system, we have eight cameras in each post, eight cameras in the crossbar. You get a definitive shot of the ball crossing the line, straight in line where the camera should be, no error. (It’s a) fantastic system.”

The aim  accepted now by Fifa as long as a reliable system can be found is to rule out the possibility that a clear goal, like Frank Lampard’s against Germany in the last World Cup, could be missed by the officials.

Goalminder would cost £100,000 to install in grounds. Its founders including director David Parden have made only losses on it to date, but stand to make millions.

Mr Parden said: “All we’ve done is put money in for 14 years. Me personally, and Harry, and I suppose all the others over the years, we must have put in £100,000 each Over 20 years, you could be making hundreds of millions.”

Also the Football Association (FA) have backed the idea of goal-line technology and believe it can be introduced to the Premier League as early as next season.

Alex Horne, the FA general secretary, told the BBC that the FA was supportive of the addition of goal-line technology to the ‘armoury’ of referees, and that its introduction would depend on the results of nine systems currently being tested.

“I think goal-line technology would be a huge boost for the game,” Horne told the BBC. “For years we’ve thought this was a good addition to referees’ armoury.

“It’s easy to make mistakes and we’ve all seen examples where the referee and assistant referee can’t see if a ball has crossed the line or not. We need to support them in decision-making.”

The current testing phase will be assessed by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) in March, with a second testing phase between March and June. IFAB and FIFA will then make a decision on the future of goal-line technology in July.

Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) President Mike Fennell is set to end his 17-year reign over the body, having promised Malyasia’s Prince Tunku Imran that he will not stand against him in the elections later this year.

The Jamaican was first elected at Victoria in Canada in 1994 but will step down in November at the Assembly in St Kitts and Nevis when Tunku, who has been the CGF’s vice-president since 2003, is expected to be the only candidate.

Fennell confirmed that he would not be seeking another term during a telephone call with Tunku earlier this week. Fennell had been forced to miss this week’s Executive Board meeting of the CGF because he is currently recovering in Jamaica from triple heart bypass surgery.

Tunku stated: “I was in contact with Mike Fennell to let him know that I’d like to announce my candidacy during the time of the EB, particularly as so many [CGF] regional vice-presidents were here.

“I did announce to the Board that I would be standing. Mike Fennell said to me, ‘If you are standing then I won’t’. He’s said he is going to stand down.”

Tunku has been a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since 2006 and President of the Olympic Council of Malaysia since 1998, the year that Kuala Lumpur became the first country in Asia to host the Commonwealth Games, the event widely credited with helping reinvigorate the Games. 

Tunku added: “Since Kuala Lumpur the Federation has gone…to something that is much bigger. Our vision was that the Games should represent what the Commonwealth is best at. We made it happen.”

Tunku now wants to carry on that philosophy when he is elected as President and plans to arrange a strategic review early next year involving the GCF, Commonwealth Games Associations and sports to discuss the future direction of the events, including how to get the top athletes like Usain Bolt to compete. 

“I’m keen not to change direction but to strengthen the Federation in so many ways,” he said. 

“We need to be better known. We have to try establish the desire of top athletes to want to be part of the Games, without obviously getting into the payment of monies because we can’t go down that route.

“We’ve got to change the perception of the top athletes. That’s to do with how we market the Games and position the Games.”

Football Federation Australia Chairman Frank Lowy has revealed all A-League clubs will get a share from their $10 million sale of Western Sydney Wanderers.

The long-awaited deal means ownership of the club will pass to a consortium chaired by Primo Smallgoods businessman Paul Lederer.

Lederer will be joined by Pirtek founder Peter Duncan, Filipino-Chinese businessman Jefferson Cheng and a fourth investor who Lowy confirmed would be David Slade, who is a family friend of the FFA chairman and a partner in British fashion outlet Topshop-Topman.

The FFA, which started the Wanderers with the help of $4 million in federal funding almost two years ago, has been eager to sell the club.

While Lowy called the Wanderers “a good investment”, the amount of money the FFA poured into the club is not known.

Lowy would not disclose what revenue the governing body was expected to make, but he confirmed A-League clubs would get a share.

“The new people who are coming in are very experienced in running the club,” Lowy said.

“I think we’ll get around $10 million or so (for the sale).

“I don’t dare to tell you (the expected surplus). We don’t have the final result and I don’t like to talk before then, but we’ll be sharing some of the surplus with the clubs.

Asked what other areas the money would be allocated to, Lowy simply said: “The whole of the game will benefit from this.”