The U.K. Golf Course Owners Association (UKGCOA) have announced newly appointed General Manager, arthritis James Cameron has left the Association with immediate effect due to family commitments.

Cameron, ed who was appointed in February, had only been five months on the job in the newly created role as General Manager before his departure.

His responsibilities will go to Andrew Lloyd-Skinner who was appointed by the UKGCOA as Interim Chief Executive on a part-time basis to oversee the association’s management responsibilities with help from Debbie Goddard and Paul Taylor.

Andrew and his family have been the owners of North Weald Golf Club in Essex for ten years. During that time he has become extensively aware of the issues facing golf facility owners and he is keen to work with proprietors and operators to confront the issues and maximise all opportunities for the proprietary sector.

Andrew will be speaking at the Regional Meetings at the location and dates shown below and will be delighted to meet as many proprietors as possible to understand what the propriety golf sector really wants from its Association.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge has requested the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) to talk with its athletes over ongoing protests related to the 2012 London Games’ sponsorship deal with Dow Chemical.

The Indian government has asked IOA to raise the issue of the deal in the latest sign of pressure on organisers to reconsider the involvement of a company linked to the Bhopal gas disaster.  Many victims and activists hold Dow responsible for failing to give enough compensation to victims and some have called for a boycott of the London Games.

The pesticide plant was owned by Union Carbide, which settled its liabilities with the Indian government in 1989 by paying $470 million (R2400 crore) for Bhopal victims.

Dow bought Union Carbide a decade after the company had settled with the Indian government and now finds itself in the firing line for its sponsorship of a temporary decorative wrap over London’s Olympic Stadium.

“Definitely we respect a lot the emotion in India because this is a horrific catastrophe,” Rogge said. “While we totally understand the emotions and the grief, one has to say that Dow Chemical was not involved in the Bhopal issue.”

Activists say 25,000 people died in the immediate aftermath of the accident and in ensuing years, and about 100,000 people who were exposed to the gas continue to suffer today from ailments that range from cancer, blindness to birth defects.

“We have advised the IOA to enter into a dialogue with their athletes and this is what they will do,” Rogge said.

Australia’s Gold Coast have won the rights to host the 2018 Commonwealth Games, after beating the emerging Sri Lankan city of Hambantota for the honour.

In voting at the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) General Assembly on Friday, Gold Coast secured 43 votes to Hambantota’s 27.

Departing CGF president Jamaican Mike Fennell, said: “My sincere congratulations to Gold Coast theirs was a fantastic bid and they are a very, very worthy winner. Hambantota was also a very strong bid, and we have a duty to take the Games to new places, but the bid needs to be the right thing for the Commonwealth Games movement at the right time. This time Gold Coast was successful, but I hope Hambantota consider bidding again — their team were wonderful.”

The vote took place after the Evaluation Committee presented its report, following visits to both cities to assess the bids. Both cities launched their campaigns in Malaysia back in May, and submitted strong bids to host the Games.

The city of Gold Coast is a glitzy tourism hot spot, located on the coast of south east Queensland. Its bid team said they expected the event to create 30,000 jobs and provide a US$2-billion boost to the economy.

Media reports suggest work on the athletes village could start as early as next February.

The Indian city of Delhi hosted last year’s Games with Glasgow in Scotland down to stage the 2014 showpiece.

Digital rights group, Perform has appointed the former publishing director for Stuff and FourFourTwo, Martyn Jones as their new global brand sponsorship director as part of their expansion plans.

Jones will be responsible for commercialising Perform’s consumer brands including the website Goal.com, which has recently undergone a redevelopment and redesign in preparation for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

He will also be tasked with developing strategic global brand partnerships across Perform’s portfolio of direct-to-consumer products.

The role has been created as part of Perfom’s expansion and in particular in response to next year’s World Cup in Brazil, the increase in traffic since Goal’s redesign and Perform’s recent acquisition of the sports data company Opta.

Jones will report to Stefano D’Anna, the managing director for worldwide sales and brand partnerships at Perform.

D’Anna said: “Martyn brings a huge amount of brand, product and editorial experience working at FourFourTwo, one of the world’s largest football media brands, and clearly understands the technology sector through his work with Stuff.”

Jones has worked for Haymarket Consumer Media for the past 17 years initially joining as a sales executive on Autocar Classified and working his way up to publishing director of gadget magazine Stuff and football mag FourFourTwo.

Jones said: “Perform have a unique global proposition that reaches more football fans than any other digital football brand. They have made great strides with the redesign and launching into new markets and across all platforms, so I’m looking forward to getting started in preparation for Brazil 2014.”

With spending on the London 2012 Olympics nearing its £9.3 billion ($14.5bn) budget, Olympic minister Hugh Robertson has insisted the Games will not go overbudget despite a warning from the National Audit Office (NAO) that there is a “real risk” of an overspend.

The NAO say the finances for the Games are so finely balanced that “not everything is rosy” and that changes to things such as the security threat level or on transport could tip the balance. On Monday the government said an extra £271m ($423m) was needed for security guards, totalling £533m ($832m) and that £41m ($64m) of public funding will go towards the opening and closing ceremonies.

But he is adamant that the Games will not go over the overall £9.3billion ($14.5bn) budget, and said: “It’s the job of the National Audit Office to dig into these things and highlight any possible risks to the public purse, but I am very confident the Games can be delivered on under budget.”

He added: “The building work will be 95% complete by Christmas, we have already doubled the spending on security and it was always in the back of my mind that security costs were going to rise.”

The NAO have looked at the Government’s own risk analysis of the Games and Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, said: “The programme to deliver the venues and infrastructure for the 2012 Games remains on course, so it looks as if value for money will be achieved in this area.

“However, not everything is rosy.

“The Government is confident that there is money available to meet known risks but, in my view, the likelihood that the Games can still be funded within the existing £9.3billion public sector funding package is so finely balanced that there is a real risk more money will be needed.”

Robertson said the huge increase in security staff and costs was down to a change in the international security situation, and the fact that final planning could only be done once the competition schedule and detailed design of the venues was known.

He said: “When I started being minister there was no Arab Spring. No one really knows whether that’s going to have a beneficial or adverse effect on our security.”

The allocation of public money for the ceremonies could prove more controversial in the current economic climate, but Robertson insisted the Government was not trying to match the lavish ceremonies staged by Beijing in 2008.

To hear more views on this topic go to iSportconnect’s discussion What are the benefits of the London 2012 Olympics.

The Chairman of Doha’s 2017 World Athletics Championships bid, discount Sheikh Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, is confident the Qatari capital will see off competition from London to be awarded hosting of the competition.

Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, who is also Secretary General of the Qatar Olympic Committee, said:”I think we will make more of the future, make more of working with the IAAF on development. I think that will make the difference.We know that they have a lot of development programmes across all five continents. This could be going to the youth, making athletics tracks in the regions that are in need of them. We leave that to the IAAF. We will cover the prize money from our side and it is up to them how they choose to use it.”

Al-Thani is convinced the Qatari bid had managed overcomes concerns about the heat conditions at the 40,000 capacity Khalifa Stadium in Doha.

He said: “I think that when the evaluation committee were in Doha, they witnessed the first generation cooling system that we developed four or five years ago. Now we are working on the second generation, which will be solar powered. We are offering a solution not only for Qatar but for the region. Some countries face cold weather, some face hot weather. Some countries need heaters in the roof, they are looking for a solution for the cold weather.”

Qatar’s bid forms part of a heavily backed, ambitious development programme based around sport. Qatar will host the 2022 World Cup and has also bid for the 2020 Olympics.

Qatar have offered to provide £5m of prize money for the IAAF, UK Athletics Chairman Ed Warner described £5m the offer as “modest” in comparison with the amount  London could generate for the IAAF in sponsorship and commercial ventures.

The IAAF’s decision will be announced later today in Monaco.

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