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.”

London 2012 event organisers LOCOG have apologised to North Korea’s women’s football team after the wrong flag was displayed during national anthems.

The South Korea flag was shown alongside players’ names on screens at Hampden Park instead of the North Korea equivalent when a video package was being shown ahead of kick-off.

The Koreans headed back into their dressing room in digust but were eventually persuaded to take the field and the game kicked off an hour and five minutes after it was meant to.

However, the organisers of the London 2012 event (LOCOG) issued a statement of apology over the incident which came a day before the Games were officially opened.

It read: “Today ahead of the women’s football match at Hampden Park, the South Korean flag was shown on a big screen video package instead of the North Korean flag. Clearly this is a mistake, we will apologise to the team and the national Olympic committee and steps will be taken to ensure this does not happen again.”

South Korea and North Korea exist as neighbours but have a far from harmonious relationship.

The countries were formally established as separate entities in 1948, and the Korean War began in 1950. Only two years ago, North Korean artillery shells killed four people, two from the military and two civilians, on Yeonpyeong Island in South Korea.

Manchester City are in the midst of expanding their season ticket scheme to allow fans to use their membership cards to interact with each other and swap content.

The football club, discount currently hitting the heights at the top of the Premier League, site is utilising the cards’ RFID (radio frequency identification) technology to make the cards more personal to each individual fan.

Manchester City supporters will soon be able to use their smartphones to access exclusive augmented reality content based around players from the team. When they are in the vicinity of another fan with a membership card they could soon be able to swap the content – like stickers – with friends.

Richard Ayers, rx Manchester City’s head of digital, says: “[This] takes [being a fan] out of the TV and the home and the stadium and puts it in the pub and makes it very personal.”

Manchester City launched its digital membership scheme this season. Beyond augmented reality content, the tiered scheme also allows fans to collect points to go towards purchases at the City of Manchester Stadium and the club’s website.

The football club has launched a series of digital initiatives in recent months as it looks to take advantage of the team’s current good run of form and engage with more fans to boost online revenue.

They recently signed a lucrative deal with YouTube.

Despite untimely fresh allegations of corruption within FIFA, the current president of world soccer’s governing body Sepp Blatter has received another boost in his bid to re-elected for a fourth term after the Oceania confederation confirmed their support for the Swiss.

Blatter is widely expected to gain the support of CONCACAF at the elections, as well as UEFA, who last week confirmed their backing for the 75-year-old, up against Qatari Asian Football Confederation (AFC) president Mohamed Bin Hammam.

Oceania have followed suit following a meeting of their executive committee in Auckland today, May 12, with a statement revealing Blatter’s “significant impact” on the region during his 13 years in office had been a determining factor.

The statement read: “As the 61st FIFA Congress draws closer, OFC has confirmed its support for the re-election of FIFA president Joseph Blatter citing a range of initiatives that have positively impacted the region under his leadership.

“The OFC Executive Committee met in Auckland today to discuss key issues including the upcoming FIFA election that will be held in Zurich on the 1st of June.

“OFC President David Chung says all members agreed that the current FIFA administration has had a significant impact on the development and popularity of football across the Pacific.

“While all Member Associations have an independent right to decide on which candidate to vote for, President Chung says today’s decision highlights the unity and transparency within the Confederation.”