Sunil Manocha, an experienced sports industry professional with over 20 years of experience across sales, business development, television production, rights distribution and sponsor servicing, has taken charge as Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Nimbus Sport.

Manocha replaces Yannick Colaco completing a smooth leadership transition at Nimbus Sport. Colaco has joined NBA as its India Managing Director.

Manocha started his career with Nimbus and has worked on over two dozen major international sports projects over the last two decades, in a variety of management roles. These include the Cricket World Cups 1992 and 2003; the ICC Champions Trophies of 2000, 2002 and 2004, the Asian Games 1998, Hero Indian Open Golf 2012.

He also headed the advertising revenue function at Nimbus associate company Neo Sports with distinction through 2006-2008 before a brief stint away as an entrepreneur. He returned to Nimbus Sport in 2012 to continue his long running relationship with the company.

Speaking of Manocha’s appointment to the new role, Nimbus Communications chairman Harish Thawani said, “It is with pride, affection and respect that I welcome Sunil to his new role. The little master has in the past proved his tremendous capabilities in all areas of our operations. As much a man of relationships, as he is of strategic thinking and attention to detail, his love for sports, passion to excel and excellent interpersonal skills make him the ideal person to grow the business further.”

On his new role, Manocha said, “With established expertise across all verticals of the sports value chain-from origination to intermediation to delivery, Nimbus Sport is fully equipped for growth in an exciting new era for sports business in India and Asia. It’s been a journey of great learning and excitement with Nimbus so far, and in this new role, I look forward to working with the team in leading the organisation to new heights.”

The Palace of Monaco have refuted claims of corruption and wrong-doing on the part of Prince Albert II after he was accused of accepting bribes in exchange for his backing of Sochi’s successful bid for the 2014 Winter Games.

One of the Prince’s former advisors, Robert Eringer, has consistently accused Albert and last week launched an official complaint with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) of which Prince Albert is a member of the board.

Eringer stated that lavished gifts were awarded to the Prince to ensure his vote from President, at the time, Vladimir Putin and Kremlin banker Sergei Pugachev. The American is suing his former employer in a California court, claiming a breach of contract and seeking back pay in the amount of US$476,000.

In an email sent via the Palace of Monaco to the Associated Press, the Palace stated: “The Royal Palace of Monaco categorically denies the false allegations of Mr. Eringer against His Royal Highness Prince Albert II,”

“An IOC member for more than 25 years, the monarch has worked tirelessly to promote sport around the world and to defend its values.”

Eurosport have partnered with SNTV that will see the sports video news agency supply both digital and television broadcast content for Eurosport’s international channels.

The deal will see SNTV provide Eurosport with material for its daily sports news bulletins and regular magazine shows. SNTV leads the sports video news market on planned coverage of forthcoming major international events, symptoms including the Sochi Winter Olympics and the FIFA World Cup, viagra buy as well as regionally popular sports which appeal to Eurosport’s unrivalled Pan-European audiences.

The agreement also includes SNTV digital content for online platforms, delivered to meet Eurosport’s extensive digital portfolio of websites and apps. SNTV provides its clients with well over 6,000 digital video clips per year.

SNTV’s high definition offering will further strengthen Eurosport’s depth of coverage on both its Eurosport and Eurosport 2 channels. SNTV’s delivery of premium video content will feature prominently on the Eurosportnewschannel, broadcast in nearly 50 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

Martin Kay, Managing Director, SNTV commented: “Eurosport has long been synonymous with offering a world-class schedule of sporting events. SNTV is therefore ideally placed to deliver on their breadth of programming needs, with excellent journalism credentials to get them the story first and in a consistently high quality package.”

“Signing with Eurosport is of key importance to us. With Eurosport having a Pan-European footprint as a major sports broadcaster, it will bring a fantastic exposure to the content produced by SNTV, ensuring the satisfaction required by Eurosport viewers for the latest sport news.”, added Beatrice Saunier, Head of IMG France, who led the negotiations with Eurosport.

Triathlon Ireland has announced the appointment of Chris Kitchen as the new Chief Executive Officer.

Chris has experience in both business and sport, sale sale running a number of companies as well as being heavily involved in triathlon as a competitor, technical official, coach and Board member.

He was one of the key players in the British Triathlon’s modernisation programme and in January 2007 was appointed as Director with the Performance Portfolio to the British Triathlon Board. He was a part of the Board which oversaw a transition to a company with substantial reserves, significant growth and medal success in London 2012. Heavily involved in the High Performance Programme, Chris led the strategic direction, chaired the elite selection panels across all disciplines and reported to the Board on Performance matters.

The ITU Congress in Auckland saw him re-elected onto the ITU Multisport Committee where he now acts as Chair in the strategic development of Duathlon, Long Distance Triathlon, Cross Triathlon, Winter Triathlon and Aquathlon worldwide.

With a business background in Document Management Systems, Software Development, IT Solutions and Website Development he has substantial management experience and commercial knowledge and understanding.

Commenting on his appointment Chris said. “I am absolutely delighted to have been appointed as CEO. Triathlon in Ireland is really buoyant and exciting with a growing membership supported by coaches and technical officials and of course some great events.  I have a great team behind me, both staff and volunteers, a supportive board and I am really looking forward to seeing what I can do to help develop Triathlon Ireland for triathletes in Ireland.”

Alexey Sorokin, Russia’s World Cup bid chief, says England’s reaction to his country winning 2018 hosting rights was regrettable and that the team didn’t know ‘how to lose’. He claims the bid team ran a clean race and that Russia is now ready for scrutiny to intensify as preparations begin.

England’s shock elimination in the first round of the FIFA vote on Dec. 2 prompted bid leaders to criticize FIFA’s bidding process after securing just two votes in what reports revealed to be the best technical bid.

“They [England] had a good bid in general. We regret that it turned out this way. But you have to know how to lose too,” Sorokin said in an interview with Russia Today.

“We think our bid is totally within FIFA’s philosophy, that is to move the World Cup to new regions, to open up new horizons to expand the power of football.”

Giovanni Malago has been elected the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) president after securing a majority of votes in the election.

He edged out Raffaele Pagnozzi to take the presidency by five votes winning 40 -35 at the national council elections in the CONI headquarters today. He is the organization’s 15th president.

Malago is a Rome luxury car businessman and also the head of the prestigous Circolo Canottieri Aniene that has produced a number of Olympic champions.

Pagnozzi also serves as the secretary general of the European Olympic Committees (EOC) that are headquartered on the CONI sports compound.

“In sport it’s difficult to win, but it’s also difficult not to win – I embrace Pagnozzi. I consider this job to be the most important there is in this country. I’ll do everything to honour it,” he said at the election today.

Malago was also in charge of the Rome 2009 FINA world swimming championships held on the grounds of CONI.

Indian sports and entertainment channel SONY SIX has secured exclusive broadcast rights to 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2018 FIFA World Cup in India.

The deal also includes rights to broadcast FIFAU- 17 World Cup 2017 to be hosted by India.

This latest acquisition by Sony SIX comes on the back of broadcasting the UEFA and CONMEBOL matches from the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifying rounds, pharm in addition to acquiring the rights for qualifiers for UEFA Euro 2016 and UEFA Euro 2016. The line-up makes Sony SIX the home of International Football for the next 5 years with 17 landmark FIFA events including: 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil, therapy FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017, doctor FIFA Confederation Cup Russia 2017,2018 FIFA World Cup Russia.

Niclas Ericson, FIFA Director of TV, added: “FIFA’s mission is to develop the game everywhere for all, by staging international football tournaments on all continents, and supporting football development projects and our 209 member associations across the world. FIFA believes that Sony SIX and its commitment to high quality sport entertainment will deliver first-class coverage of FIFA U-17 World Cups, the 2014 FIFA World Cup, the 2018 FIFA World Cup and other FIFA competitions to this crucial audience. India already has a great passion for football and with the support of Sony SIX, FIFA looks forward to inspiring more fans of football and young players in India for the years ahead.”

Prasana Krishnan, EVP and Business head, Sony SIX said: “We are thrilled to have acquired the broadcasting rights of the FIFA World Cup in 2014 and 2018. Popularity of football is growing in the country and with India bagging the rights to host the FIFA U-17 World Cup 2017 the interest levels are only going to go up.  We have focussed extensively on top international football and we are now proud to bring the best in the world to Indian viewers.”

The 2014 edition will be held in Brazil from 12th June to 13th July 2014. 2018 FIFA World Cup will be held in Russia from 8th June to 8th July 2018.

International Rowing Federation president Denis Oswald has revealed he will remain in charge of the organisation only for a temporary basis.

At a 2013 FISA Extraordinary Congress staged over the weekend in Copenhagen, Denmark, the Swiss IOC member revealed he would seek re-election Sept. 2 at the FISA Ordinary Congress – but only for a “transitional period” of six to eight months.

“The Council had agreed to stage the election of his successor at the same Congress in order to assist the newly elected ‘president-elect’ in the transfer of knowledge and introductions around in the international sports world after having held the position 24 years,” explains FISA.

Oswald, who handed over the reins of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations last month, was first elected FISA president in 1989. 

National federations are asked to declare possible candidates for his successor to FISA by June 2.

Also at the congress a proposal to add women’s lightweight single sculls to the Olympics has failed to gain approval from rowing’s governing body.

Rowing federation FISA says the Canadian proposal was withdrawn over the weekend at the federation’s congress in Copenhagen .

There are currently six women’s events on the Olympic program, with eight for men.

Meanwhile, the congress approved the reintroduction of the women’s four event for the world championships. The event had been removed after the 2011 worlds.

The congress also rejected a proposal to eliminate the men’s coxed pair event.