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

IMG Media, physician a division of IMG Worldwide, the global sports, fashion and media company, has agreed a new three-year deal with the Barclays Premier League for aeroplanes and ships rights.

The deal includes extensive coverage on Sport 24, the 24-hour live sports channel exclusively produced for the airline and cruise industry.

The new agreement covers the 2013/14, 2014/15 and 2015/16 seasons and will see the Barclays Premier League matches shown live and in highlights on specially-equipped Lufthansa and Gulf Air planes as well as Norwegian Cruise Liners (NCL). IMG Media is in ongoing discussions with a number of other airlines and cruise liner companies to expand the coverage.

Richard Wise, Senior Vice President, IMG Media, said: “The Barclays Premier League is the most popular and exciting league in world club football. It is in great demand by passengers worldwide and is also a tremendous asset for Sport 24. We are delighted to have extended our agreement for another three years.

“Our goal is to continue to distribute the very best live sports action to both these markets. With the launch of Sport 24 earlier this year we have featured some of the best sporting action within one channel. Events include the London 2012 Olympic Games, UEFA Euro 2012, the Ryder Cup, Bundesliga, Formula 1 , golf majors including The Masters and The Open, Grand Slam tennis from Wimbledon, Roland Garros and the Australian Open and, of course, the Barclays Premier League.”

Premier League Chief Executive, Richard Scudamore, said: “We know IMG well and are extremely pleased that they have chosen to invest in the Premier League’s exclusive aeroplanes and ships broadcasting rights.

“We look forward to working with them as they distribute the Barclays Premier League in a way that allows our fans to enjoy the competition while travelling overseas.”

Italian Serie A team AS Roma have signed a contract with the US giant Walt Disney corporation to train at its sports facilities in Florida, the club said on Monday.

“It’s a first step (for the club) in the United States, there will be others,” said club administrator Mark Pennes.

The six-year contract will see Roma train at the ESPN Wide World of Sports in Orlando during the Italian league’s winter break, as well as see the development of the club brand in the United States.

A number of major US teams already have a contract with Disney to use the facilities, including the Atlanta Braves baseball team, American football outfit Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Orlando Magic from basketball.

Roma, currently sixth in Serie A, are owned by US entrepreneur Tomaso DiBenedetto, who took over as president last year, ending 18 years of ownership by the Sensi family, first Franco and then his daughter Rosella.

by Ismail Uddin

CBS CEO Leslie Moonves has revealed that CBS Sport has appointed Sean McManus as the chairman of the broadcast division after overseeing both CBS News and CBS Sports since 2005.

The news comes as part of a reshuffle at the company with McManus leaving the News division altogether. “60 Minutes” Executive Producer Jeff Fager is now Chairman of CBS News. He’ll be working with the newly-hired David Rhodes, who was most recently head of U.S. Television for Bloomberg. Rhodes takes the title of President of CBS News.

Moonves tells the staff “these are three terrific executives, and our whole organization will benefit from their tremendous talent, dedication and experience.” The changes take place as of February 22. In radio, the CBS News Radio product is distributed by longtime partner Westwood One.

Australia’s Mens national soccer team, Qantas Socceroos’ East Asian Football Federation (EAFF) East Asia Cup 2013 qualifying matches will be streamed on Australian broadcaster SBS.

The EAFF East Asian Cup qualifiers for the men’s edition of the EAFF East Asian Cup 2013 are being played in Hong Kong from 1-9 December 2012 and will involve teams from Australia, Chinese-Taipei, Guam, Hong Kong & DPR Korea.

The teams that will participate in the EAFF East Asian Cup for men are Japan, Korea Republic & China PR with a fourth team determined by a qualification process. The qualifiers for the men’s edition of the EAFF East Asian Cup 2013 will be played in Hong Kong from 1-9 December 2012 and will involve teams from Australia, Chinese-Taipei, Guam, Hong Kong & DPR Korea.

The EAFF East Asian Cup 2013 will be held in Seoul, Korea Republic from 20-28 July 2013.

Portugal’s football federation has rejected a proposal to expand the country’s Premier League by two teams to 18 as it would undermines the sport’s integrity.

“The FPF says no to the proposal by the Professional Football League that wanted, in practice, no club relegations this season,” , FPF boss Fernando Gomes wrote in a statement.

Last week the Portuguese League for Professional Football (LPFP) had approved the entry of two additional teams to widen the Portuguese Premier League to 18 clubs.

However, the FPF said the proposal violated the credibility of Portuguese football and compromised the basic principles of open competition.

League boss Mario Figueiredo had told Reuters in an interview that it made sense to expand the top league in order to get extra revenue and capitalise on its potential.

by Ismail Uddin

Eurosport Asia-Pacific has acquired exclusive broadcast rights to up to 60 games of the Kontinental Hockey League per season.

The two-year agreement is a first for the top-tier Eurasian hockey league, order which has never before achieved a comparable amount of TV coverage in Asia.

The contract covers mobile and Internet rights on a non-exclusive basis.

The deal was negotiated by Infront Sports & Media. The agreement takes effect December 7 when CSKA Moscow plays Dynamo Moscow. The game will be broadcast live on Eurosport Asia-Pacific across 15 territories: Brunei, ambulance Cambodia, South Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Tonga and Vietnam.{jcomments on}

English Football League chairman Greg Clarke has ruled out weekend reports suggesting Celtic could be about to leave the SPL for League One or the Championship.

A report in a Sunday newspaper claimed the Glasgow giants were so keen to join English football that they were in secret talks over a move into League One – the third tier of the English set-up.

Club sources have insisted that is not the case and Clarke himself said it would be “disrespectful” to the Scottish football authorities to enter into any such talks.

“We have absolutely no intention of having any discussions with any club from another national league regarding membership of our competition, rx ” he added.

“This would be highly disrespectful to the Scottish FA and Scottish Premier League and will not be countenanced by the Football League.”

It had been suggested that exploratory talks had already begun over a sensational move which would see the Parkhead club leave behind 124 years of history in Scotland and begin life in League One.

Such a move would be a financial shot in the arm for lower league clubs south of the border and would offer Celtic a route into the Premier League.

But the idea has already met with opposition from some club chiefs in England.

Leyton Orient chairman Barry Hearn claimed it goes against Football League rules and said Celtic would be “destroying their own history” should they leave Scottish football.

by Ismail Uddin