Valencia have taken a bold move in absence of a shirt sponsor by putting their Twitter handle on the front of their shirts.

Valencia decided to take the opportunity for a little self promotion in their match against Barcelona on Wednesday. Valencia are one of the nine clubs in the Spanish Primera without a shirt sponsor this season. This is the first time a top flight club advertised a Twitter account on their kits and with just over 36,000 followers as of today, it seems like they needed to get the word out.

Now that the precedent has been set, it probably won’t be long until a company pays a club to put a Twitter handle on their shirts possibly Valencia itself.

RTV Slovenia have secured certain 2012–15 UEFA Europa League media rights in Slovenia.

Public broadcaster RTV Slovenia will show each matchweek the best live match and a highlights programme on SLO2. All rights have been granted on a platform-neutral basis, allergy | with the rights also being exploited on internet via rtvslo.si and on mobile.

 

Staff at Manchester United are expected to receive a record bonus payout. Manchester United will pay out a record £5million ($7.85mn) in bonuses to more than 500 Old Trafford staff.

According to the Daily Mail, symptoms the Glazer’s wrote to employees last Monday to tell them they are all in line for a 7.9 per cent bonus on their annual salary in recognition of the club’s success.

Some members of staff, such as £2million-a-year chief executive David Gill, will net just under £160,000 ($251,000) from the scheme.

The Glazers were determined to reward staff across the board after another hugely successful season at Old Trafford. United won a record 19th top-flight title and reached their third Champions League final in four years.

Performance off the field has also been reflected in the Glazers decision to give staff record bonuses.

They have been on performance-related pay since the Glazers took over in 2003, but the bonuses announced to staff are a record.

The club employ 620 people at Old Trafford, Carrington and at their commercial offices in London. Around 520 are non-playing staff and they have all been told the extra money will appear in next month’s salary.

United announced record revenue of $520.8m (up $70.7m over previous year) and record operating profit in excess of $172.8m for the twelve months ending June 30th 2011.

They are also making inroads into their substantial debt at Old Trafford, income is at record levels and they are planning a $1billion flotation on the Singapore stock market. United will publish the next set of accounts in October and they are expected to show massive increases in salary levels.

Real Madrid financial figures for the year ending June 30, capsule 2011 have seen an unprecedented record turnover.

The La Liga giant reported the revenue, capsule before the transfer of players, increasing from Eur442.3 million ($604.3mn) in 2009-10 to Eur480.2 million ($656.1mn) in 2010-11. A club statement read: “Real Madrid closes 2010-11 fiscal year with Eur480.2 ($656.1mn) million turnover, representing an 8.6% increase over last year. It is the largest revenue obtained by any sports institution in the world.”

Real’s net profit saw a significant 31.7% rise year-on-year to Eur31.6 million ($43.2mn). The club has also managed to take a substantial chunk out of its debt load as it fell from Eur244.6 million ($334.2mn) in 2009-10 to Eur169.7 million ($232mn).

Real added: “The club has managed to obtain a balanced structure of income sources, with a contribution that equals around a third of the total of each of the three great areas (stadium, television, marketing). This diversification of recurring income sources confers social stability to the club, cushioning the impact of possible income oscillations motivated by differences in performance in sports and the evolution of financial activity.”

Real’s biggest Spanish rival FC Barcelona revealed a pre-tax loss of Eur9.3 million ($12.7mn) for the year ending June 2011. Operating income rose by 14% year-on-year to Eur473.4 million ($647.1mn), while the club was also able to report that its net debt fell from Eur430.6 million ($588.5mn) to Eur363.7 million ($497mn).

The German Volleyball League (DVL) and online broadcaster, prostate GIP, order have agreed a three-year partnership agreement.

Through Spobox.tv, buy GIP will broadcast 34 games per season from the German league, with 40 games planned for the first year of the contract.

The deal will allow for one game a week during the season and at least one game during the men’s and women’s play-offs.

Bjorn Beinhauer, Managing Director of GIP said that clubs in the league will be able to use the videos on their own websites and a mobile app was in production.

FIFA, 25 hours after making the announcement that Issa Hayatou had been appointed the head of the committee for the London 2012 Olympic football tournament, completely denounced the appointment citing technical errors for the miscommunication. 

The FIFA website had even been updated with the president of the Confederation of African Football’s name listed as chairman of the two committees yesterday.

But in an astonishing U-turn, FIFA last night backtracked on the announcement, denying that the controversial African football boss, who has twice faced corruption allegations in the last year, had been awarded the FIFA positions. 

“Due to a technical error, appointments for FIFA standing committees have appeared on the FIFA website,” said the FIFA statement released to media at 19:00 CET on Wednesday.

“The appointments for the chairman and deputy chairman of the FIFA standing committees will be communicated in due course. 

“Therefore, Issa Hayatou has not been appointed as chairman of the organising committee for the Olympic football tournaments.”

The appointments, supposedly signed, sealed and delivered by FIFA boss Sepp Blatter, had attracted heavy criticism as Hayatou, an IOC member from Cameroon, name is still fighting off bribery allegations relating to a BBC Panorama documentary. He is currently the subject of an IOC investigation.

New high-profile jobs for Hayatou hardly fit with Blatter’s pledge to clean-up FIFA “from within” following a disastrous year for the federation which has been rocked by a series of bribery scandals.

As new chairman of the GOAL Bureau, Hayatou would have replaced disgraced Mohamed Bin Hammam, who was handed a lifetime ban by FIFA in July following alleged attempts to bribe Caribbean voters in the FIFA presidential race.

The statement on Hayatou’s FIFA appointments has since been removed from the CAF website.

Hayatou previously chaired FIFA’s Olympics committee from 1992 to 2006. He has been an IOC member since 2001.

He was among three FIFA executives charged with accepting bribes in a BBC Panorama investigation aired just prior to the Dec. 2 vote on the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. It was claimed he took a kickback in the $100 million scandal in the 1990s that engulfed FIFA’s now-defunct marketing partner ISL.

Hayatou denied accepted 100,000 French Francs (about $20,340), saying it was a payment towards his confederation’s 40th anniversary celebrations.

Hayatou was implicated in another bribery scandal earlier this year when The Sunday Times claimed the Qatar 2022 World Cup bid paid him a bribe in exchange for his vote. He denied any wrongdoing and FIFA cleared him after it received no evidence to back up the allegations.

The International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles (FILA) has agreed a four-year extension to the European Broadcasting Union’s (EBU) broadcasting deal.

The new deal will allow EBU member broadcasters to cover four European and three World Wrestling Championships, click whilst the EBU will continue in its role as worldwide distribution partner.

Raphael Martinetti, order President of FILA said: “We are pleased to continue our excellent partnership with the EBU, the strongest media consortium in Europe.

“This gives a unique possibility for Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling to grow into new markets and continue the recent and positive development of our fantastic Olympic sport.”

The two companies began their partnership back in 1988.

Serie B, symptoms the second tier of Italian football, here has secured international media rights with the B4 Capital agency, marking the first time the league’s rights have been separate from Serie A.

The deal is valid for the next three-seasons and the President of Serie B was delighted at the historic partnership.

Andrea Abodi, who has held the presidential role since 2010, said the agreement showed Serie B was “continuing on its path of growth and consolidation of a sporting and economic identity that will take effect even beyond the boundaries of the Italian peninsula.”

Serie B kicks off on Friday 24 August, between Modena and Hellas Verona, who formed a promotion push in last season’s campaign.

Sportfive have sold the Israeli broadcast rights for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

The Sports Channel has acquired the rights to broadcast in Israel and Sportfive is selling the rights to the Games in 40 European countries.

Sportfive engineered a US$315 million deal with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in February 2009.

Shaila-Ann Rao, decease Chief Executive of Sportfive said: “”We are confident that The Sports Channel will ensure top quality and innovative live coverage and excellent programming at both events.”

The terms of the deal allow The Sports Channel to show free-to-air, free ed pay TV, pay-per-view TV, video-on-demand TV, internet, mobile and radio rights within Israel.

FC Barcelona’s vice-president of finance, Javier Faus, believes club’s finances remain in a “delicate situation” and has pin pointed the importance of its sponsorship deal with the Qatar Foundation ahead of a critical vote this month.

Speaking at a press conference addressing Barcelona’s finances for the end of the 2010-11 season and presenting its budget for 2011-12, Faus outlined the club’s position has improved but more work must be done. Barcelona currently has a net debt of Eur364 million ($502mn) and Faus stated that reduction to a level of “just over Eur200 million ($276mn)” is the target.

“We followed an austere line, we’re committed to growth and we’ve reduced the debt, but we’re still in a delicate situation,” he said. “The debt is still too high for us to be able to dictate our future. We can’t afford to owe so much money to the bank, and we need to generate more income.”

The team jersey already bears the Qatar Foundation logo this season, but the club’s general assembly must ratify the €170 million ($225 million), five-year deal on Sept. 24.

Faus said on that without the €30 million ($40 million)a year the club is set to make from the deal this season it “would suffer losses.”

Faus maintained the importance of Barcelona not relying too much on the banks, but revealed that debt levels have been reduced from Eur430 ($593mn) to the current Eur364 million ($502mn) in one season.

“It’s not the debt that we want, and we have to reduce it further, to sustainable levels, with regard to the cash flow generated by the club. We’ll continue to work on it,” he added. Looking to the current season, the club has budgeted for a profit of Eur20.1 million ($27.7), revenues of Eur461.1 million ($636.5mn) and costs of Eur430.2 million ($593.9mn) based on targets of successfully defending its LaLiga title, and reaching the quarter finals of the UEFA Champions League.