The acting chief executive of Cricket South Africa (CSA), Jacques Faul, has resigned from his post barely four months after sports minister Fikile Mbalula appointed him to restructure the embattled organisation.

In his letter, Faul cited a “sense of hostility,” and a “campaign to discredit” him as his reasons for resigning. “Certain board members have lost trust (or never had any) in my judgement and seek to micro-manage operations,” Faul stated in the letter.

Faul took the reins at CSA following the suspension of long-time chief executive Gerald Majola in the wake of a ministerial committee finding that recommended disciplinary action and possible criminal charges against him following a two-year debacle over huge irregular IPL 2 bonus payments to himself and other CSA staff.

The second edition of the Indian Premier League was played in South Africa due to security concerns around elections at the time in India. Majola’s disciplinary hearing, which was scheduled to be finalised last month, is still to start amid challenges over the composition of the panel from his legal team.

Faul has been lauded for his efforts in his short tenure at CSA to bring about the transformation that sports minister has insisted on. CSA sources also suggested that there had been disagreements between Faul and CSA president, Willie Basson, over the process, but neither official could be reached for comment.

Soccerex has announced that Rafael Benitez will be speaking on ‘The Art of Management’ at next month’s European Forum in Manchester.

The Spaniard is one of Europe’s most successful managers. He first came to prominence at Valencia where he led the club to its first La Liga title in 31 years in 2001-02. This was followed by another league title in 2003-04, pills along with the UEFA Cup, before he moved to Barclays Premier League club Liverpool. The highlight of Benitez’s career on Merseyside came with the 2005 Champions League triumph over AC Milan and he left the club to join Serie A giant Internazionale in June 2010.

The Art of Management will see Benitez disclose inside secrets on what it takes to produce success on the pitch including training tactics, mental preparation and analysis. The session will be moderated by leading Spanish football journalist Guillem Balague.

Duncan Revie, Soccerex CEO, said: “Mr Benitez is one of the most successful managers of recent times, his record speaks for itself. It is a huge honour having him speak at Soccerex on ‘The Art of Management’…an art which he has definitely perfected during his career.”

In addition to the Art of Management, the Soccerex conference will include content on UEFA’s player and coach development in the wake of financial fair play (FFP) and the new Elite Player Performance Plan. The Forum will also address the relationship between betting and football with consideration to the issue of match fixing, discuss club ownership and financial management with regard to FFP, debate the changing landscape of football sponsorship and look at the turbulent relationship between football and the media. This year’s European Forum will take place from March 28-29. For full information about Soccerex and future Soccerex events please visit www.soccerex.com, call +44 (0)20 8742 7100 or email: enquiry@soccerex.com.

Premier League chief executive, Richard Scudamore has revealed that the Premier League have looked into introducing a winter break, but currently to no avail.

England boss Roy Hodgson recently joined Sir Alex Ferguson and Roberto Mancini in calling for a two-week halt to the season to benefit the national side and afford Premier League stars respite from a gruelling fixture list.

But Scudamore says talks with the Football Association (FA) and the Football League have yet to yield results  to work a break into the current schedule.

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, he said: “We have tried but unless somebody is prepared to give something up, it is pretty hard.

“We offered to start the season a week early, which is difficult in terms of summer holidays, but we don’t really want to be starting in July.

“We are not inclined to reduce the number of clubs in the Premier League – if you were running a theatre and had 380 nights that you wanted to sell, why would you throw 60 or 70 of those nights away?

“Similarly, the Football League don’t want to lose the League Cup. It’s a huge source of funding for the Football League and it is a big solidarity play between the leagues.

“As for the FA, they don’t want to give up replays in the FA Cup, so we all sit down and we all look at each other, but it’s pretty hard for those of us in English football to create that two-week space.

“Nobody has asked the Football League to give up the League Cup, but why would we? We are huge supporters of it and we wouldn’t have the temerity to alter the FA Cup either.

“That will be up to the FA, but unless the FA decide they have different priorities, where the England team is more important than something else they own, then that might be for them to look at.”

Victoria Wood has joined the UK’s leading sports participation company, Limelight Sports as Communications and PR Account Director. 

She originally worked for Biss Lancaster and Tangerine PR on a number of consumer PR programmes for clients including, ASDA, Galaxy, and Wilkinsons.  In 2009 she moved into sports PR and has worked for clients such as Meindl and Puma.

Commenting on her appointment Wood said, “This is a great opportunity for me and a wonderful time to be joining Limelight.  The enthusiasm and commitment from everyone here shows just why the agency has been so successful in recent times.  Sports participation is a sector which will continue to grow in the coming years and as such will attract significantly more media attention”.

She joins at a time when the agency is enjoying unprecedented levels of success. Last year Limelight won the award for Sport Agency of the Year at the Sport Industry Awards.  In March the agency picked up three more awards at the Hollis Sponsorship Awards including Sponsorship Agency of the Year.

Limelight Sports has created many of the UK’s highest profile events and programmes including the Sainsburys’ Sport Relief Mile and Sky Ride. Limelight Sports also runs Swimathon, the annual national swimming challenge and works with the Royal Parks Foundation to stage a unique half marathon in London. 

Legendary surfer joins Eric Cantona and Oscar Pistorius amongst distinguished line-up of speakers

Laird Hamilton has been a member of the Oxbow Team since 1990 and boasts achievements such as “Waterman of the year” in 2004 and “Rider of the Year“ in 2000, overcoming the biggest waves in the world, among them Jaws in Peahi and Teahupoo in Tahiti. An accomplished waterman and kite surf pioneer, Hamilton is an internationally renowned free-surfer who has contributed to the development of his sport around the world. “Always higher, always bigger, always faster” is the philosophy of his Oxbow Unlimited Team.

 Hamilton will join many of the world’s leading brands, government institutions, rights holders and governing bodies from sport already signed-up to attend the Forum, which has quickly established itself as one of the industry’s most influential thought leadership platforms.

Lucien Boyer, General Commissioner of the Global Sports Forum Barcelona, commented:

“We are delighted to welcome Laird Hamilton to Barcelona for this new edition. Laird is one of the greatest free surfers in history and we look forward to him sharing his vision on the world of surfing along with the various projects he is working on.” 

Laird Hamilton is the latest inspirational speaker to sign up to take part in the Forum, which provides a year-long community for people to debate the latest issues and share opinions on sport. Ex-Footballer turned actor, Eric Cantona, London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic hopeful, Oscar Pistorius, LOCOG Chairman, Sebastian Coe, FC Barcelona President, Sandro Rosell, YouTube’s Head of Sports Content, Claude Ruibal and many more are already confirmed to take part.

Members of the press are invited to attend free of charge. 

To view the latest list of speakers confirmed to take part in the Global Sports Forum Barcelona 2012, visit www.globalsportsforum.org/2012speakers 

The AFC has apologised for an offensive term one of its writers used last week to describe the UAE national side on its official website, the-afc.com.

The website referred to the UAE national team as ‘Sand Monkeys’, rather than less controversial, more widely-used nicknames such as ‘Al Abyad’ or ‘The Whites’. An AFC writer reportedly used the offensive nickname after finding it on the UAE national team’s Wikipedia page.

The AFC wrote to the UAE football association to apologise for the mistake and has posted the following statement on its official website:

“The AFC apologises for an editorial mistake in which the UAE National Team was inadvertently referred to by an inaccurate nickname on the AFC’s official website www.the-afc.com in the article ‘UAE to take cautious approach’ dated 12 October 2012.

The error, which was mainly because of referral to a popular web-based encyclopedia by the concerned Editor, was corrected immediately after it was noticed. The AFC would like to apologise for any hurt this might have caused to the UAE Football Association and UAE football fans.” {jcomments on}

The Swedish Ice Hockey Association has announced the appointment of Tony Wiréhn as the new General Secretary of the 2013 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship organizing committee.

He replaces Lars G. Karlsson who will stay with the event organization.

Tony Wiréhn will start on his new job on 1st September. His previous sport experience was with the Swedish Tennis Association and his most recent position was with Cloetta, capsule one of Sweden’s most famous chocolate producers founded in 1862.

The 77th IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship (3-19 May 2013) will go back to Stockholm, ambulance Sweden, abortion and Helsinki, Finland as part of the two-year co-hosting agreement. Next year Stockholm will host both semi-final games as well as the medal games.

The 2012 OC General Secretary, Lars G. Karlsson, will focus fully on sport and competition issues within the 2013 organizing committee.

“It is extremely inspiring to be part of an organization like this,” said Tony Wiréhn. “The World Championship in ice hockey is the biggest annual winter sport event in the World, broadcast to 114 countries and watched by some 950 million people.”

“With a strengthened organization I am sure that we will be able to host a great event and our goal is to make it a true festival for the fans,” said the new General Secretary.