World Rally Championship (WRC) team, Hyundai Motorsport has announced Stefan Ph. Henrich will become their Director of Marketing & PR.

Stefan will bring considerable communications expertise with him to the role, including 12 years at Hyundai Motor Europe culminating in his most recent role as HME Spokesperson. He will be heading up a highly experienced team made of people from various motorsport and automotive backgrounds.

Hyundai Motorsport Team Principal Michel Nandan commented: “We’ve been evolving rapidly since the beginning of the year and made great progress in filling all the main roles to establish our core team. We’re facing a big and exciting challenge, in building a team from scratch and we have now only nine months to prepare for next year. I’m now surrounded by the best people in the business and I’m confident we’ll be ready to meet our ambitious goal to be ready at the start of the 2014 FIA World Rally Championship. While we have a very busy year ahead of us, I believe that team-work together with shared commitment and passion for motorsport are the keys for success.”

The Munich bid committee hoping to host the 2018 Winter Games has appointed global public relations firm Weber Shandwick, who worked on Sochi’s successful bid to host the 2014 edition, to help win its campaign.

With offices situated in 74 countries, Weber Shandwick is the world’s largest global PR company and has worked on several successful Olympic campaign’s, including Turin’s bid for the 2006 Winter Games and Beijing 2008.

Bernhard Schwank, the chief executive of Munich 2018, stated: “We are extremely happy to be able to work with Weber Shandwick.

“The agency’s ability to develop impactful international campaigns, expertise and experience in Olympic and sport bidding, geographical spread we need and strong presence in Munich have been the decisive factors to select it as our international public relations partner and we have been happy with its support around major Olympic events to date.”

On a less success note Weber Shandwick also worked on England’s disastrous bid to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup, however, CEO for the UK and EMEA Colin Byrne, was confident that they could help Munich prevail over its rivals Annecy and Pyeongchang.

Byrne added: “We are honoured to be engaged to support Munich 2018. Our goal is to provide a winning global communications programme for Munich 2018 and support them throughout their journey across the world. 

“Our Global Olympics practice, which helped lead the past three Weber Shandwick bidding campaigns including Sochi 2014, will bring to bear the best bidding and campaigning experts we have in our roster to support this effort.”

The hopes of the French city of Annecy hosting the 2018 Winter Games have been hit after a group opposed to the bid claim to have collected over 13,000 signatures of people who are against it, overshadowing the announcement that 500 of France’s greatest ever sportsmen and women, including Zinedine Zidane were behind the campaign.

The group, Annecy Comité Anti-Olympique (CAO) – Annecy Anti-Olympic Committee – claim to have gathered 13,649 signatures and are planning to hold a press conference to highlight their concerns about the French city’s bid.

A statement published via the CAO’s official website read: “The CAO exists for two years, multiplying actions. 

“It aims to inform very precisely Haute-Savoie population not only on the excesses of the Olympics, the sport business, the financial stakes of multinationals and unacceptable demands of the IOC, but also on adverse impacts on the environment and on uncontrolled public spending with long-term debt for the Olympic city.

“We believe that the truth must be told.

“Annecy 2018 nomination is no exception to the rule of the denial of democracy, despite the repeated promises on budget transparency, nothing has been published.

“Are elected officials lying to us?”

The President of Annecy 2018, Charles Biegbeder has refuted the claims, vowing that the public were fully behind the bid and the support of so many top athletes would help Annecy close the gap on Munich and Pyeongchang, the favourites.

Biegbeder stated: “Athletes are at the heart of this bid and have played a central role in helping us devise our plans.

“We are delighted to have been able to unite the entire French sporting movement, including athletes of all disciplines, behind Annecy 2018. 

“Their collective support and commitment in helping galvanise public support and promoting the bid around the world is vital as we enter the final straight in this campaign.

“We have had fantastic support from the public throughout this campaign and believe they will energise the bid team over the next 100 days.”

21st Century Fox have completed the acquisition of a majority stake in the Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network (YES Network) following an agreement announced on January 24, check 2014.

The transaction raises 21st Century Fox’s ownership position in the regional sports network to 80 percent from the 49 percent it acquired in 2012. The remaining 20 percent continues to be held by Yankee Global Enterprises.

The YES Network delivers exclusive live local television coverage of New York Yankees baseball and Brooklyn Nets basketball, as well as other leading local and national sports-related programming.

As a result of the acquisition, the YES Network is now a consolidated entity of 21st Century Fox. President and Chief Executive Officer Tracy Dolgin remains in his role leading the network.

The network currently showcases live Yankees and Nets games to approximately 9 million households in the teams’ television territory in the New York area. Outside of the New York area, the YES Network also distributes a variety of national programming to millions of homes across the country.

Fox Sports Media Group is the nation’s leader in local regional sports programming, operating a leading array of 22 owned-and-operated U.S. regional sports networks, which collectively produce over 5,000 live local events each year and serve as the local TV homes to more than half of all MLB, NHL, and NBA teams.

Nigel Evans, adiposity current Board Chairman of England Golf, medstore has accepted the nomination to become President of the England Golf for 2014 with a view to becoming President in 2015.

The 67 year old, who has been involved in amateur golf administration since 1980, says he is delighted and surprised to be considered and is looking forward to the next two years.

“I feel highly honoured and delighted to have been chosen,” he says. “My life has been in golf and golf administration for over 30 years and I feel this is also an honour for my club, Sandiway, and my home county of Cheshire.”

Nigel was on the Executive Committee and Finance Committee from 2002 – 05, serving as Chairman of the latter in 2004 – 05 and was a member of the Management Committee in 2005. During the period to 2005, he also served on the Presidents Advisory, Championship, National Coaching, Budget and Remuneration Committees.

He was an EGU Board member from 2005 – 2011 and its Chairman from 2009 and still holds that position with England Golf following the merger with the English Women’s Golf Association and is due to retire next year. Nigel played a major role in the merger, being Chairman of the EGU steering group from 2009 – 2011.

Prior to the merger, he was the Board member responsible for National Coaching and Elite Performance from 2005 – 2011, while he has been the tournament referee for the Daily Telegraph Junior Championship since 2002. He is also a past captain of the Hittite Golfing Society and a member of the Senior Golfers Society.

Nigel is married to Judith, a keen golfer at Runcorn Golf Club, and they have a son Robert, a pilot with easyJet, and a daughter Elizabeth, a specialist physiotherapist.

“I am looking forward hugely to 2015, which is a Walker Cup year, and travelling with Judith to all our major championships throughout the Country” Nigel adds. “Being President is a huge job but I know what is ahead.”

Shergul Arshad, symptoms Digital Business Director at AS Roma will join Giuliano Giorgetti, Head of Web and New Media at AC Milan, on the ‘Monetising Social Media’ panel at this year’s Soccerex European Forum on 10-11 April, Manchester.

Through the launch of innovative accounts on Facebook and Twitter, Roma has quickly become one of the most original and progressive clubs using social media and, in a recent report, digital-football.com saw them as becoming the fastest growing club on twitter. They have also experienced rapid growth on a number of other accounts including YouTube, Pinterest, the AS Roma Dream League and online AS Roma Membership, the AS Roma Fantasy Manager on iTunes /Facebook and a new eCommerce site.

Shergul Arshad commented:

“As well as creating engaging content and improving our fan interaction, we’re also aware of the need to monetise our social media channels. As Europe’s leading football conference, the Forum is the perfect platform to discuss this process and share ideas with counterparts across the continent.”

The Soccerex European Forum is a two-day event which attracts over 1,500 delegates from the elite of Europe’s football industry to come together to debate, network and do business. This year’s agenda setting conference programme will tackle the key issues shaping European football, including fan engagement, media rights, match fixing, discrimination and addiction, life after football, social media and a selection of special 1-2-1 sessions with the game’s biggest names.

For further information about this event please call +44 (0)208 987 5522 or visit www.soccerex.com/europe.

Amid wide reports that Africa will look to secure its first hosting of an Olympic Games in 2020, Kenya have joined the list of countries who claim that they are interested in bidding.

Prime Minister of Kenya Raila Odinga raised the possibility when he was visited by members of Brazilian football club Palmeiras.

Odinga stated: “No country in Africa has won more Olympic medals than Kenya so we have all the rights to host the Games and we are asking Brazil to support us.”

An expected bid from South Africa is already in the final stages of deciding whether to put forward a city for 2020 following the success of last year’s FIFA World Cup, with cities such as Durban and Johannesburg among the hopefuls.

Earlier this month Morocco’s Sports Minister Moncef Belkhayat revealed that there were plans for Casablanca to bid for the Games in the near future.

Since making their debut in the Games at Melbourne in 1956, Kenya has won a total of 75 medals, a remarkable 68 have been won in athletics with seven coming from boxing.

An Olympic bid from Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, must still be considered a long shot with the city having made noises about trying to host the 2014 and 2018 Commonwealth Games but a bid has never materialised.