Cricket Australia (CA) Chairman Wally Edwards has confirmed the return of former Australian captain Mark Taylor to the CA Board.

Mark Taylor, who previously served as a CA director from 2004 to 2012, will rejoin the Board immediately as an independent director appointed by CNSW. He will replace Dr David Dilley who has voluntarily stepped aside to allow Taylor to rejoin the Board. 

Speaking after a Board meeting at CA’s Centre of Excellence in Brisbane,  CA Chairman Wally Edwards said: “I commend Dr Dilley on his selfless decision to stand aside for Mark and for his contribution during his short time on the Board.  I also congratulate Cricket NSW on governance changes at a state level which led to the state association yesterday announcing it was appointing Mark Taylor as its first-ever independent director. Mark has been a significant contributor during his previous CA Board term and his return will bolster CA Board expertise and experience.”

Football Federation Australia (FFA) were $3 million under budget for their failed 2022 World Cup bid it was revealed to the Federal Government.

 

The bid team spent $42.25 million of the $45.59 million of Government funds granted to underwrite the ambitious project, $3.34 million under budget.

But the accounts also showed the leather bound Bid Book – the 700-plus page dossier detailing the fine print of the bid – cost more than $11 million, $3 million over the estimated $8 million.

Included in that was the $3.82million it cost for the final presentation in Zurich alone, plus another $4.89 million to prepare the Bid Book itself (which included scanning 60,000 contracts).

Using consultants like Sepp Blatter cohort Peter Hargitay and bid book specialist  Feder Radmann cost a total of $6.72 million, with Hargitay picking up $1.45 million and Radmann $3.63.

However the bid saved more than $3 million by not having to pay out win bonuses to the consultants.

The figures also reveal the bid spent more than $2 million on charity donations in Asia and Africa including $1.25 million to Vision Asia, $500,000 in “support for Oceania Football Confederation”, $140,000 towards Chengdu Emergency Relief and $90,000 on lapdesks in Africa.

Football United was given $30,000 while a South African children’s hospital received $150,000.

However the bid team has saved $950,000 in the wake of the bid’s failure by backtracking on planned investment towards developing football in Asia.

PR cost the bid $1.54 million while another $4.86 million was spent on marketing and advertising, mostly in payments to outside agencies.

Domestic and international travel ran up a $2.64million bill, but it was stressed FFA Chairman Frank Lowy paid his own way for all his travel expenses.

Staff costs added up to $5.65 million, but FFA CEO Ben Buckley’s wage and that of other executive figures like head of development John Boultbee and the head of legal affairs and the chief finance officer were not included in that total.

Ben Buckley, FFA CEO, commented: “Although the submission of this report was a formality it was also an important milestone for FFA under our obligations contained in the funding agreement. The acceptance of the report marks the end of the bid process and with our commitments to the Federal Government around the bid now complete we can close the chapter on this stage of our history.”

“We were all disappointed with the result of the decision and we are on record as saying that we believe the bid process was flawed. However, we are very proud of the bid we submitted on behalf of Australia which was widely acknowledged as technically strong.

 

 

Jerro Colangelo, the Head of USA Basketball (USAB), has said that he believes the current lockout will not implicate on the USA’s ability to field a strong Olympic basketball squad of 15 at next summer’s London 2012 Games.

Colangelo told NBA.com: “I haven’t even really started reaching out, and I’m fielding calls. They’re calling me and they’re calling me to say they’re playing.”

If the lockout is still ongoing for the start of next year’s Olympics, there could be many logistical and potentially legal problems.

But Colangelo insisted: “I think it’s important that people in the basketball world – fans, media – understand something very basic.

“USA Basketball is self-sustaining; it’s its own entity; it is not an arm of the NBA.”

The dispute, which began on July 1 when the NBA started a lockout of its players, will continue until a new collective bargaining agreement is reached with the National Basketball Players Association.

Invicta Fighting Championships has secured its broadcast future, ed signing a multi-year, medicine multi-event deal with UFC Fight Pass.

The all-women’s promotion has been out of action since December of last year, generic pills when it hosted its seventh event from the Ameristar Casino in Kansas City, Mo. All of the organization’s previous events have aired via live stream on the promotion’s website. However, on more than one occasion, the promotion has been forced to refund its online pay-per-views due to issues with the streams. Now, as part of the UFC’s digital network, those issues are a thing of the past.

Invicta FC President Shannon Knapp commented on the deal: “This is a great day for my company. Since the start of Invicta, I’ve been committed to providing the biggest and best possible platform for women athletes and, with this distribution deal with UFC Fight Pass, Invicta will reach the most passionate MMA fans, wherever they are in the world.”

In addition to every upcoming Invicta event streaming live, the entire Invicta fight library is also expected to be available on UFC Fight Pass.

The Rio 2016 Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games has appointed Federal Police Chief and public security expert Luiz Fernando Corrêa as it’s Security Director at the Games.

 In addition to the security of competition and non-competition venues, Corrêa will handle the liaison with all government security agencies.

Corrêa has headed the SENASP – the national public security department – between 2003 and 2007, when he oversaw security for the Pan and Parapan American Games Rio 2007 before being appointed Federal Police General Director, a post he left in January.

Besides working in close collaboration with the federal, state and city agencies, the Rio 2016 Security Directorate will focus on ensuring the core security planning and operations at competition and non-competition venues are integrated with other Organising Committee functional areas.

The directorate will be responsible for delivering corporate security services, venue security access control and asset protection for the Games. It will also provide security specifications for all competition and non-competition venues and manage private security contractors that will supply services to the Organizing Committee at all Games venues.

“I am delighted to work again with Luiz Fernando Corrêa, who played a critical role in ensuring the safety of the Pan and Parapan American Games Rio 2007. A highly competent and trustworthy professional, Luiz Fernando represents yet another assurance that the Games in 2016 as well as the test events to be held in 2015 will take place in a safe, secure environment”, said the Rio 2016 President, Carlos Nuzman, who was also the Rio 2007 Organising Committee President.

“The excellence of Games security will be crucial to make the participation of those involved in the event really unforgettable and to consolidate a new security level that both Rio and Brazil have been reaching over the past years. It is a great honour to put my expertise in the field at the service of such a unique project in the history of our nation”, Corrêa said.

Corrêa will attend the Organising Committee meetings with the International Olympic Committee Coordination Commission for the Rio 2016 Games in early June.

Doha are the first to show their hand as they launched their marketing campaign for its bid to host the 2017 World Athletics Championships.

The campaign will go under the banner “The RIGHT PARTNER for a stronger World Championships”.

Among the initiatives are a website showcasing the bid, which wen’t live yesterday, and a logo.

Doha, whose only opposition will be from London after the IAAF announced that only London and Doha were bidding, unveiled its team which will be led by Abdulla Al Zaini, the President of the Qatar Association of Athletics Federations (QAAF).

Its team includes Aphrodite Moschoudi, a Greek, who will be the Strategic Planning Manager for the bid. She works for the Qatar Olympic Committee and was instrumental in the successful World Indoor Championships, held in Doha last year. Moschoudi was also involved in Qatar’s successful bid for the 2015 World Handball Championships, where they upset the odds and beat a rival bid from France, who were considered the favourites. 

Doha have also sought overseas expertise in the form of Australian Brian Roe, an influential member of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Technical Committee.

Khalifa Stadium is a big part of Doha’s plans as the newly renovated, climate-controlled, state-of-the art venue will include the first ever stadium-wide 100 metre panoramic screen.

Other mission statements include working “hand-in-hand with the IAAF, we will work to overcome technical and mental barriers”, including “how can athletics events be hosted in different climates – whether it is too hot or too cold opening the opportunity for many new regions to host athletics events?”

Successfully persuading the IAAF that Doha can host the World Championships is seen as vital in helping the city’s bid to stage the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics.

Doha have requested that they are allowed to move the Championships from its traditional July and August window to later in the year to avoid the worst of the Qatari summer.

Lamine Diack, the President of the IAAF, said: “It is possible that a date can vary. I will not be hostile to that, if it concludes the season.”

His endorsement of changing the dates was a massive boost for Doha.

Other aims of Doha 2017 include “how can a tradition for athletics at the grassroots and the elite level be developed quickly in new countries around the world?”

Al Zaini, said: “With world-class facilities and experience in hosting major sporting events, Doha will set new standards in athletics in a new region of the world. But organising a great event is not enough, we want to make a difference for the future of athletics.”

A poll taken from travellers in Germany, allergist France and the United States conducted by the research agency TNS has suggested that up to 42 per cent now see Britain as less appealing building up to the Olympic Games which is to be staged in London next year.

From the travellers planning a holiday in the UK, drug 25% of Americans 14 per cent of Germans, and five per cent of French respondents were detterd from visiting.

In each of the three countries, a third of those questioned said they felt less confident about London’s ability to stage a trouble-free Olympic Games, despite the promise by officials on the organising committee to review security arrangements in the wake of the riots.

A spokesman for VisitBritain said that the survey was carried out too soon after the riots, and the results represented a “ kneejerk” reaction. He said that in the long term tourism was unlikely to suffer.

“Britain’s tourism industry is extremely resilient,” he said. “No major visitor attractions were targeted by rioters and the situation is just about back to normal. Our experience has shown that, besides having to deals with calls from concerned relatives back home, holidaymakers in London during the rioting were not affected.”

He said that official figures for foreign arrivals during August would be available in October.

The European Tour Operators Association (ETOA) said that the impact of the rioting on visitor numbers to Britain was “negligible”. It said that in the immediate aftermath of the unrest its members had reported fewer than 100 cancellations for hotel rooms per night, which it said was not unusual.

Tom Jenkins, executive director of the association, “People cancel for a myriad of reasons. The disturbances have proved as significant a factor as having a sick dog or flooding the bathroom.”

He added that the rioting would not affect visitor numbers to the Olympics.

“The Olympics is, overwhelmingly, a domestic event,” he said. “British people won’t be put off from visiting the Olympics in Stratford because a year earlier shop windows were broken in Hackney.”

The World DanceSport Federation (WDSF) has hired Stockholm based IEC in Sports as the exclusive distributor for media rights of the WDSF GrandSlam Series.

The six-leg GrandSlam Series features two dance styles Latin and Standard and attracts hundreds of top couples from over sixty nations to compete in five locations throughout the world. Dancers compete to gain maximum ranking points, health record purses and strive to secure a place in the GrandSlam Finals in Shanghai, viagra price CHN, sale held in mid December.

“We believe the GrandSlam Series complements the World and Continental Championships for broadcasters seeking year round coverage of this exciting sport’’ said Carlos Freitag, President of the World DanceSport Federation.

Since 2008, IEC in Sports also distributes the WDSF World and Continental Championships, and has included broadcast on top networks including CCTV-5 China, Cable TV Hong Kong, Paris Premiere, J-Sports Japan and SVT Sweden to name a few. 

“DanceSport is enjoying an immense surge in popularity and makes for a great television product,’’ said Daniel Franck, CEO of IEC in Sports.

“The opportunity for the Lagardère Digital Media Centre in Stockholm to produce many of the highlight shows for WDSF is an important part of the cooperation and brings us closer to the sport,’’ added Franck.