Euroleague Basketball, Eurosport Asia-Pacific and IEC IN SPORTS have announced the international sports network will exclusively broadcast official Turkish Airlines Euroleague matches for the coming two seasons, 2012-2013 and 2013-2014.

The new three-party agreement enables Eurosport Asia-Pacific to broadcast games of the top European competition in 17 countries and territories. When added to Euroleague Basketball’s existing television rights contracts, it means that games of the Turkish Airlines Euroleague will now reach a global coverage area encompassing 186 countries and territories. 

Starting with the next Turkish Airlines Euroleague Regular Season games on Thursday, December 6, Eurosport Asia-Pacific will have exclusive rights to broadcast each “Game of the Week” plus other two games per week to the following countries and territories: Australia, South Korea, Mongolia, Taiwan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, Papua New Guinea and Tonga. The agreement also includes non-exclusive rights to broadcast the same three-game weekly package to both Hong Kong and the Philippines. 

“We are extremely happy for this opportunity to bring the Turkish Airlines Euroleague to 17 new countries and territories in Asia,” Andrea Bassani, Euroleague Basketball’s Director of Television & New Media Rights, said. “Our collaboration with Eurosport started nine years ago, creating a very strong relationship between the sports network and the Eurocup. Now, we are very proud to have signed terms with them, thanks also to IEC IN SPORTS, to extend this relationship to our main competition, the Turkish Airlines Euroleague, reaching a new expansion level.” 

Arjan Hoekstra, Managing Director of Eurosport Asia-Pacific said: “This new agreement with Euroleague Basketball continues a current drive to bring exciting, new and importantly, exclusive live sport to Eurosport subscribers in the Asia-Pacific region. Eurosport will be providing complete coverage on TV, internet and mobile and help to create wider visibility for the Euroleague across our extensive regional network which now reaches from Australia to South Korea.” 

“We believe it’s a good deal for all parties involved and we are very happy to have been able to broker this successful cooperation with two important partners of ours – Euroleague and Eurosport”, says Daniels Franck, CEO of IEC in Sports.

The Estadio da Luz in Lisbon will host the 2014 Champions League final, UEFA have confirmed.

The 2014 Europa League final will be played at the Juventus Stadium in Turin.

Benfica’s home ground will host the showpiece match, while European football’s governing body confirmed the 2014 Europa League final will be played in Turin.

The Estadio da Luz hosted the final of Euro 2004, where Greece triumphed over tournament hosts Portugal. The city last hosted a European Cup final in 1967, when Celtic beat Inter Milan at the National Stadium.

The new Juventus Stadium was inaugurated at the start of the current campaign and is built on the site of the club’s former Stadio delle Alpi home.

The Allianz Arena in Munich will host this season’s Champions League final having also staged games during the 2006 World Cup, including the opening match between Germany and Costa Rica. Bucharest’s new National Arena, which officially opened in September last year, will host the 2012 Europa League final.

Wembley will host the 2013 Champions League final, having also been the venue for last year’s final between Barcelona and Manchester United.

In other decisions ratified by UEFA’s executive committee on the first day of the governing body’s Congress in Istanbul, the Czech Republic was chosen to host the 2015 European Under-21 Championship while England will stage the 2014 European Under-17 Women’s Championship.

by Ismail Uddin

Speedo, pill the leading worldwide swimwear brand, has appointed its new UK commercial director in Mark Wyatt.

Wyatt replaces the outgoing Tim Ives who has become the European business development director for the company having worked as managing director of Sodastream as well as a number of senior leadership and commercial roles.

Speedo CEO, David Robinson commented: “We are delighted to have Mark on board. He is an experienced and innovative senior leader with an outstanding track record in developing businesses in a diverse range of markets, products and cultures, particularly within tough trading climates.”

Mark Wyatt added: “Speedo is an iconic, world-renowned brand and I relish the challenge of developing its UK growth and brand presence through a variety of commercial routes, in conjunction with the Speedo UK management team”.

Sky Sports has agreed a new deal to show the ATCO PSA World Series Squash Finals in January 2013 from The Queen’s Club in London. 

The highlight of the squash calendar, the $110,000 ATCO PSA World Series Finals – from 2-6 January – will feature the eight players who have earned the most points from the elite PSA World Series championships in 2012. 

Despite one event still remaining – the Qatar PSA World Championship, which gets underway in Doha later this week – England’s world numbers one and two James Willstrop and Nick Matthew, plus leading Egyptian Ramy Ashour and France’s twice winner of the title Gregory Gaultier, have already earned their places in the prestigious event. 

Sky Sports will broadcast live coverage of the semi-finals and final on Saturday 5 and Sunday 6 January. There will also be coverage of both the semis and final of the women’s WSA World Series Finals. 

Widely regarded as one of the most spectacular matches ever televised, the 2012 PSA final saw Egypt’s four-time world champion Amr Shabana ultimately triumph over Frenchman Gaultier to win his first ever squash title on British soil. 

“Last January’s coverage of the Finals was extremely well received throughout the squash world and we are delighted to extend the live coverage on Sky Sports into a second season,” said PSA CEO Alex Gough. 

“We were able to showcase of all the improvements we have made in televising squash and the ‘rubber-stamp’ approval of Sky Sports will help a lot towards our case of inclusion into the 2020 Olympic Games,” added the former world number five. 

Barney Francis, managing director of Sky Sports, said: “This announcement reinforces our commitment to offering a wide variety of live sports for our customers. Sky Sports caters for a broad range of diverse content and our recent rights renewals give us the strongest line up of live sport for our viewers to watch at home or on the move.” 

Sky Sports will work in tandem with SquashTV, the PSA’s dedicated online and TV operation launched just three years ago.

Richard Scudamore, Premier League chief executive, has indicated his belief that Celtic and Rangers will never be allowed to join the English top flight. 

Suggestions the Old Firm clubs will attempt to leave the Scottish Premier League have surfaced again following Rangers going into administration.

There have also been reports Celtic wanted to join the football league in which Football League chairman Greg Clarke denied.

One idea would be that Rangers could re-form as a new club and play in England but Scudamore insisted he could not see it happening – and the Old Firm in England’s top flight would go against Premier League regulations.

Scudamore said: “Our rules are simple. It says we’re a league formed for clubs that play in England and Wales.

“I don’t see that ever changing. I don’t see that changing on my watch, not that my watch may last for long.

“There’s more in it for them than there is for us.”

In 2009 Premier League clubs voted vehemently against allowing the Old Firm clubs into a two-tier Premier League as part of a proposal put forward by Bolton chairman Phil Gartside.

Celtic and Rangers are attracted to the Premier League due to the financial gains they will receive, even the bottom club in the Premier League earns several times more in television money than the two Old Firm clubs.

by Ismail Uddin

 

The FIM MotoGP World Championship have announced the appointment of Corrado Cecchinelli as Director of Technology, nurse overseeing technical developments relating to the three World Championship categories; 125cc, Moto2 and MotoGP.

 

NBA coverage in Germany will now be shown on pay-TV channel Sport1+ who has acquired an extensive rights package for two years including the 2013/14 season.

As part of the exclusive agreement the channel will show two live matches per week as well as the weekly highlight magazine “NBA Action”.

The live games will be transmitted in the nights from Tuesday to Wednesday and from Saturday to Sunday. Sport1+ will also show two games per week in the first two playoff rounds, viagra selected matches of the Conference Finals and the whole NBA Finals live.

The NBA All-Star Saturday Night Game and the NBA All-Star Game within the NBA All-Star series as well as the NBA Europe Live Preseason Games will round up the live coverage which can also be seen on Sport1+ HD in high definition.

Rangers administrators have received a late fourth conditional bid to buy the financially stricken Scottish Premier League (SPL) club.

The origin of the latest indicative offer for the team is not known but the BBC have reported it is likely the bid came from overseas, pills while the likelihood of further bids being submitted has not been ruled out by the insolvency firm in charge of Ibrox.

Duff and Phelps had previously set a deadline of last Friday for “indicative bids” to be submitted for the club.

The offers made so far for Rangers are non-binding and no pledges of investment from the bidders have been revealed yet.

Current owner Craig Whyte’s status as secured creditor and majority shareholder at Rangers remains unchanged, despite the administrators stating that they view him as an “irrelevance” in the process of selling the club.

Duff and Phelps have not launched any legal process yet to try and remove Mr Whyte from his position, while they are currently awaiting directions from the Court of Session over whether they can breach the £24.4m deal agreed by Mr Whyte with Ticketus for future season-ticket sales, which is expected to conclude later this week.

The administrators’ QC David Sellar has argued that the deal with Ticketus could hamper the sale of the club.

On Friday, the Blue Knights consortium, headed up by ex-Rangers director Paul Murray, lodged an indicative bid with the insolvency firm and revealed part of their proposals would be to include fan ownership in the future.

Edinburgh-born owner of Sale Sharks Rugby Union Club Brian Kennedy has also submitted an initial offer for Rangers, but he previously stated he had “no intention” of buying a football club and viewed his bid as a “fallback” option should the Blue Knights fail.

The third offer was made by private merchant bank Prometheus Capital Partners, based in Chicago, which has previously been unsuccessful in two attempts to buy into UK football. Through its subsidiary, Club 9 Sports, the group has tried to take over Tranmere Rovers and Sheffield Wednesday but its attempts to do so proved fruitless.

by Ismail Uddin

The ESPN STAR Sports portfolio of channels will be available on both pay-TV platforms in Singapore, StarHub and mioTV, following the signing of new non-exclusive deals this weekend.

For the past three years, the sports bouquet has solely been carried in mioTV, after SingTel’s IPTV platform clinched an exclusive pact for the services. As of December 14, the channels return to cable provider StarHub, and will continue to be offered on mioTV. 

The deals cover ESPN, STAR Sports, ESPN HD, ESPNEWS, STAR Cricket and STAR Cricket HD, as well as the broadband video player ESPN Player and the live streaming mobile service, Mobile ESPN.

“We are excited to welcome ESPN STAR Sports back to our sports content line-up,” said Chan Kin Hung, the head of marketing and products at StarHub. “Combined with our current spread of sports channels, viewers can now look forward to the widest range of sports programming, including all the tennis and golf majors, on our trusted network. Customers can also take advantage of our TV Anywhere service to savour exciting ‘live’ sports coverage on their personal devices on their personal devices. By delivering a comprehensive range of sports content across multiple platforms, we are confident that customers will have the finest sports viewing experience possible.”

“We are delighted to continue our relationship with ESPN STAR Sports, our partner since we first acquired the BPL broadcast rights in 2010,” said Goh Seow Eng, managing director of television at SingTel. “We have enriched our content offering substantially this year and our renewal of the six ESPN STAR Sports channels reinforces our commitment to bringing our customers the very best sports content on one platform.”

Fifa president Sepp Blatter said secretary general Jérôme Valcke will remain in charge of 2014 World Cup preparations despite a recent dispute with Brazil’s government. 

Blatter said on Monday that Valcke would retain all of his Fifa duties, including working with the Brazilian government to organise the tournament.

Valcke’s role had been in doubt after his harsh remarks about the country’s slow preparations ignited a public spat between the Brazilian government and football’s governing body.

After meeting with Brazil President Dilma Rousseff on Friday, Blatter said he needed more time to decide whether Valcke would remain Fifa’s representative to deal with the government.

“There is no problem between the Fifa president and the Fifa secretary general,” Blatter said in statement. “Jerome Valcke is in charge of all of his activities as secretary general, including the preparations for the 2014 Fifa World Cup in Brazil.”

Some reports in the Brazilian media said that Fifa told the government that Valcke would be temporarily suspended with Blatter replacing him.

According to Fifa’s statutes, only Blatter as president can propose the replacement or dismissal of the secretary general.

Blatter asked to meet with Rousseff in Brazil when apologising for Valcke’s remarks but said the issue was not discussed in detail with the Brazilian president. He said the matter belonged to Fifa and that he would eventually decide what to do.

Valcke’s inspection visit to Brazil last week was cancelled until after Blatter met with Rousseff.

by Ismail Uddin