The Manchester United Supporters Trust (MUST) would “cautiously” welcome a flotation of the English Premier League champions after a Sunday Times report suggested the Glazers, who acquired the club in 2005, have held talks with a number of investment banks about listing the club on the Hong Kong stock market.

MUST, a group campaigning for an end to the Glazer family’s control of the club, chief executive Duncan Drasdo told The Manchester Evening News that the flotation “could be an opportunity for supporters to once again share in the ownership of their club”.

Drasdo called for a full IPO listing, “signalling a clean exit for the Glazers”, and added that the valuation “would have to be realistic – something closer to £1bn (US$1.63bn) rather than the £1.5bn ($2.45bn) that the Glazers seem to feel is possible”.

In March, United parent company Red Football Joint Venture Ltd. announced a record £104.7m ($170.8m) fiscal-year loss due to costs related to swapping a long-term bank loan for a bond last year as well as lower income from player sales.

Drasdo also called for available shares to be “available to all Manchester United supporters and floated on the UK market to maximise accessibility”, and added: “Many supporters would hate to see the Glazers walk away with a huge profit, but it isn’t about them.

“It is about what is best for Manchester United – the club and its supporters. If we wish to persuade the Glazers to go for a full flotation then a million Manchester United supporters standing together, represented through MUST, could present a compelling argument.”

CBS Sports Network has announced that it has signed a deal to broadcast the United Football League games starting this autumn.

The deal represents a small boost to the four-year-old league that has been attempting to gain traction as an alternative to the NFL with franchises in U.S. territories without a professional club such as Las Vegas and Virginia.

Over the years, other attempts at launching a viable alternative to the NFL have failed including the USFL in the 1980’s and Vince McMahon’s XFL a decade ago. The UFL seemed to be headed to a similar fate. Last year, the league reportedly experienced some financial problems that caused the delay of the season. The team located in Hartford was contracted, and negotiations for TV deals with CBS and TNT failed.

Headed into the 2012 season, the UFL has found new luck and announced Thursday that a deal had been reached for coverage on CBS Sports, a cable network that reaches 99 million households.

The eight-week season will kick off on Sept. 19. The plan is for CBS to televise two games a week — on Wednesday and Friday, two days that the NFL have not yet claimed for any games.

Unlike past leagues, the UFL has always stressed that it doesn’t see itself as a competitor to the NFL. The new league has recruited heavily from the NFL ranks. Its first commissioner was a former executive with the Jacksonville Jaguars. The league has famous former NFL coaches that run teams including Marty Schottenheimer and Jim Fassel, and its player ranks have included former NFL pros like Jeff Garcia, Josh McCown, J.P. Losman and Daunte Culpepper.

“Fans have an appetite for football at all levels and we’re excited to showcase the UFL,” said Dan Weinberg, senior vice president for programming at CBS Sports Network in a statement.

President of European soccer’s governing body UEFA, Michel Platini has hailed the decision of the English Football League (EFL) to implement Financial Fair Play regulations in the Championship, the second tier of English soccer.

The league’s clubs will only be allowed to spend what they earn from the 2012-13 season, while sides in League One and Two will not be permitted to spend more than 55% of their turnover on player wages.

The news comes after the Championship has seen a number of clubs struggle with the financial fall-out of relegation from the Premier League in recent years and clubs that breach the rules are likely to be handed a transfer ban as a first sanction, although the possibility of points deductions have not been ruled out.

Platini told Sky Sports: “We are very happy to see that Football League clubs, under the umbrella of the Football Association, are again taking the initiative on good governance issues by introducing Financial Fair Play.

“We are delighted that enlightened football bodies across the continent are trying to restore financial sanity to football on a national level, just as we are trying to do on a European level.”

Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) announced today that it has signed a five-year agreement with Fox International Channels Latin America to broadcast the CONCACAF Champions League soccer matches.

The deal starts with the 2012-13 championship commencing on 31 July and gives FOX Sports exclusive rights in Latin America, including both pay-TV and the digital platforms throughout the region. Additionally, in Mexico and South America, FOX Sports will have total exclusivity as the rights in these territories also include free TV.

“Our agreement with Fox International Channels Latin America puts the CONCACAF Champions League in perfect position to grow and fans throughout the region will be able to enjoy the competition like never before,”said CONCACAF President Jeffrey Webb.”With Fox’s many broadcast platforms and technologies, the Champions League will be presented in ways the fans want and expect.”

FOX Sports will broadcast more than 40 games live and delayed through its wide multimedia platform that consists of FOX Sports, FOX Sports+, their HD versions and FoxSportsla.com. It will also provide enhanced coverage on its shows such as Central FOX and La Última Palabra (The Last Word), and through a weekly CONCACAF Champions League highlight show.

“We’re very pleased with this new agreement and relationship with CONCACAF,” said Carlos Martinez, president of Fox International Channels Latin America, in a statement.”We are confident that we’ll turn this tournament into a favorite and make it one of the strongest in the region, leveraging FOX Sports’ wide reach and the synergies of our entertainment, lifestyle and factual channels in Latin America, as we have already done with other Latin American and European events.”

The CONCACAF Champions League, inaugurated in the 2008-09 season, is the confederation’s annual club championship. It features 24 teams from each of CONCACAF’s three sub-regions — North America, Central America and the Caribbean.

The winner of the CONCACAF Champions League qualifies for the FIFA Club World Cup.

Barcelona’s vice-president of finance, stomach Javier Faus, allergy has claimed that “the most financially solvent club in the world” within the next three years despite revealing an annual loss of Eur21 million in the latest set of financial accounts.

Faus reported that the club’s gross debt has been reduced from Eur532 million to 483 million and the net debt has been cut from Eur431 million to Eur364 million. The club’s turnover was Eur420 million for the last financial year, viagra buy but costs reached Eur441 million.

Faus acknowledged that there was still a lot of work to do to improve the bottom line of the newly-crowned UEFA Champions League winner, adding: “We want to decide our future and to do so we must reduce the debt to acceptable levels. There has been great effort, which will continue over the next two years, to reduce this debt. Barcelona lost Eur83 million last year and Eur21 this year, and we can’t afford to continue losing money.”

Faus added that Champions League-related revenues had increased from Eur39 million to Eur62 million thanks to Barcelona’s 3-1 victory over Manchester United in last month’s final, but reward payments for winning Europe’s top club competition also reached Eur28 million.

North Korea is set to air the London Olympics after a new deal was agreed with Asia’s broadcasting union.

Korea Broadcasting System (KBS) said in a statement that, Kim In-Kyu, president of KBS and the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU), had reached agreement in Pyongyang this week with the North’s radio and television broadcasting committee (KRT).

KBS said that North Korea had already sent six television production workers to London.

The agreement includes “a special condition that KRT broadcast at least 200 hours of major events of interest to North Korea via terrestrial channels”, the statement said.

It was not clear whether coverage would be broadcast live or recorded.

South Korea’s private SBS station retains the right to air the Games for the entire Korean peninsula, including North Korea, until the Olympics of 2024.

The company said it would broadcast the games in the South along with two public broadcasters KBS and MBC. It had tasked ABU with handling the rights in North Korea.

The statement also said that agreement had been reached on helping North Korea secure broadcast rights for other major events including the 2014 Asian Games, the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games.

“The two parties have also agreed on finding ways to further cooperation in contents, technical and training programmes,” KBS said.

The announcement came as Olympic organisers apologised after a mix-up on Wednesday over North Korea’s flag prompted its women’s football team to walk off the pitch in an embarrassing start to the Games.

The squad were pictured next to the national flag of South Korea — with whom the North are officially still at war — at their opening match against Colombia at Hampden Park in Glasgow, Scotland.

North Korea has sent 51 athletes to London to compete in 11 events including women’s football, weightlifting, table-tennis and wrestling.

English soccer’s second tier clubs of the Npower Championship are set to bring in their own money controls, mirroring UEFA’s own Financial Fair Play rules that are being introduced over the coming years.

According to Greg Clarke, chairman of the Football League, which governs the three divisions below the Barclays Premier League, clubs have voted in principle to adopt the system. The system will be proposed later today at the Football League’s AGM in Cyprus, where it will also be put forward that League One clubs move towards the introduction of the salary cap currently in force in League Two, where teams can spend a maximum of 60% of their turnover on wages.

Clarke told Press Association Sport: “The Championship clubs voted to look at financial fair play and in principle decided that was the road they wanted to go down. I think it’s essential, and the energy to solve this is coming from the clubs themselves. It’s a perfect storm in that a lot of things have come together to make this happen, including of course the level of debt in the game – £700 million in the Football League, most of that in the Championship – and big losses being racked up by the clubs.

“These things are never unanimous and a couple of the clubs would rather not have constraints on how much money they can spend. I would hope this could lead to a return to the days when local communities could own the clubs rather than rely on offshore benefactors. There is also a proposal for League One clubs to shadow the League Two system in the coming season with a view to their adopting it the season afterwards.”

National sports station talkSPORT has secured the exclusive commercial radio rights for the FA Cup for the first time in UK and global rights excluding Europe.

The deal also includes Community Shield worldwide rights and selected England Games UK rights.

The station will be broadcasting live audio commentary of FA Cup matches in the UK following today’s agreement with the Football Association.

Additionally, click talkSPORT’s new international service talkSPORT Live launches on 18 August and will offer access to FA Cup matches as well as all Premier League games with distribution via the internet, mobile apps and international broadcast partners.

The latest agreement follows the announcement in April that talkSPORT had signed an exclusive deal with the Premier League to broadcast live commentary of all Premier League matches outside the European Economic Area in multiple languages including English, Spanish and Mandarin for the next four seasons.

Scott Taunton, Chief Executive, talkSPORT said: “Today’s announcement clearly positions talkSPORT as the leading commercial sports radio station worldwide.

“The FA Cup is the original and most historic cup competition in the world. I’m extremely excited that this deal gives us the ability to bring talkSPORT’s passion and analysis to the FA Cup, Community Shield and England friendlies to our listeners in the UK for the first time ever.

“The opportunity to broadcast FA Cup games internationally has been a key part of our global plans for talkSPORT Live and today’s rights announcement opens up the European market to us. We are in the process of creating a network of global radio and distribution partners for talkSPORT Live.”

Moz Dee, Programme Director, talkSPORT, said: “The FA Cup creates some of the best drama and stories in football. I’m extremely excited that this deal gives us the ability to bring talkSPORT’s passion and analysis to the FA Cup, Community Shield and England friendlies to our listeners.”

Mexico’s national soccer side qualified for the quarterfinals of the Gold Cup yesterday, June 9, despite having suspended five senior international players just hours before their 5-0 5-0 thrashing of Cuba for testing positive for the banned stimulant clenbuterol.

Antonio Naelson, Christian Bermudez, Edgar Duenas, Francisco Javier Rodriguez and goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa tested positive during a training camp in Mexico according to tournament organizer CONCACAF, currently in turmoil following the suspension of their own president and subsequently, acting president.

The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football, will hold a meeting today to discuss the issue and decide whether Mexico can replace the suspended players after claiming that the five may have inadvertently ingested the substance.

Clenbuterol is used to treat respiratory disorders such as asthma and can increase aerobic capacity by improving the flow of oxygen in the bloodstream. Farmers sometimes use it illegally to bulk up cattle more quickly.

In fact, just this April, Germany’s anti-doping agency advised soccer players attending this month’s FIFA Under-17 World Cup in Mexico to avoid eating meat because of the widespread use of clenbuterol by farmers.

“As far as possible the consumption of meat products should be omitted,” the German agency said at the time.

The Football Association (FA) has announced a new six season deal with BBC Sport for the radio commentary rights for all men’s and women’s FA Cup & International matches along with the Community Shield.