UK broadcaster, viagra Absolute Radio, has obtained the commentary rights to 10 games from the UEFA Euro 2012 championships including all of England and the Republic of Ireland’s group matches.

The broadcaster has secured non-exclusive commentary rights to the home nation’s group games, followed by two quarter finals, one semi-final and the final.

Absolute will distribute its coverage via FM for the first time in London and the south east, along with its usual digital radio, multiplatform and nationwide AM network.

Ian Wright, former England footballer and Absolute’s Saturday morning presenter, will also host a daily edition of his show from 5pm for the duration of the tournament along with co-host Ian Stone. Ian Wright’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Football shows will be co-produced by USP Content.

Absolute Radio’s head of presentation Paul Sylvester said: “Wrighty’s been there, he’s done it and he knows what the players will be going through. He’ll have an amazing insight and will give his views in his brilliantly unique way.”

Radio 5 Live and TalkSport will also both air coverage of the tournament.

Scottish Premier League (SPL) club Aberdeen’s chairman, Stewart Milne stated that talks continued “to move in the right direction” with regards to a league it is expected that the SPL will shortly announce a date on which a vote will be taken over the potential reconstruction, after the 12 member clubs met at Hampden Park on Monday, February 21, for another round of talks.

Speaking of the most recent proposal for a top league of 10 and second tier of 12, Milne stated: “I’d be very disappointed if it did not go through.

Last month, SPL chief executive Neil Doncaster, who along with other officials other officials immediately entered a board meeting that could decide on a date for the vote, said consensus was being sought for a top league of 10 and a second tier of 12.

But some clubs still required convincing over the wisdom of a smaller SPL and the viability of plans to increase financial help for those suffering relegation, with the SPL was expected to present refined proposals to the clubs on Monday.

Milne spoke of the yesterday’s talks, adding: “I think they continue to move in the right direction.

“There is a bit more work to be done to get everyone totally behind it, but there is no other option on the table – we are still looking at the 10 and the 12.

“There will be a date hopefully lined up within the next two or three days and there’s further work to done on the document to bring all the elements together.

“And I would hope that, within the next four or five weeks, we would be able to get the clubs back together and take a vote on it.

“Not everyone plays their hand totally openly. There’s negotiations involved in these things and it’s finding that balance between self-interest and the interest of Scottish football and that’s where there is further work to be done.”

From today, herbal British EUROSPORT will be available on Sky Go to complete the sports line-up across all Sky Go supported mobile devices.

 

Coming ahead of a huge summer of sports on Sky, sale the addition of British EUROSPORT to Sky Go gives fans another great option for watching their favourite sports whenever and wherever they want.

 

This summer, sale British Eurosport will carry live coverage of major sporting events including the French Open, the Tour De France and Le Mans, all available on the move to Sky customers through Sky Go.

 

British EUROSPORT, the UK arm of the pan-European sports network will join the current lineup of live sports channels, Sky Sports 1, 2, 3, and 4, Sky Sports F1, Sky Sports News and ESPN. The channel is available to Sky customers with a Sky Entertainment Extra pack and appears in the Sports section of Sky Go, in line with subscriptions.

 

Offering Sky customers added flexibility and convenience, the award-winning Sky Go service continues to increase in popularity. Recent highlights include the Manchester City vs. Manchester United derby last month, with over a quarter of a million Sky customers watching the game through the app. Sky offers a number of other popular mobile apps that deliver sports content to smartphones and tablets, including Sky Sports, Sky Sports News and Football Score Centre.

The group stages of the 2012 ASEAN Football Federation (AFF) Suzuki Cup will be co-hosted by Malaysia and Thailand for the next edition of the biennial competition.

AFF made their decision and announcement yesterday, anesthetist February 21, ed though the exact dates of the tournament have yet to be released for the event whihc usually takes place in December.

A 4-2 aggregate victory over Indonesia in the two-legged final gave Malaysia their first ever AFF SUzuki Cup title at the end of last year and last staged the AFF’s showpiece tournament alongside Vietnam in 2004. Thailand co-hosted the 2008 event with Indonesia.

Football Association of Thailand president Worawi Makudi told the Bangkok Post: “We have been the host many times and the preparations for the tournament will not be any concern. However, the most important thing is that we prepare the Thai team so they can win the trophy again.”

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has extended its deal to broadcast Premier League highlights throught their Match of the Day programme until the end of the 2015-16 season. 

The current deal had been scheduled to expire at the end of next season but a three-year extension has been agreed.

 

The rights cover the Saturday evening Match of the Day programme, the Sunday morning repeat, MOTD2 on Sunday evenings and other evenings when Premier League fixtures justify a show.

 

The programmes will be available on the BBC’s iPlayer from midnight on Mondays.

Premier League chief executive, Richard Scudamore, said: “The free-to-air highlights are extremely important to the broadcast reach of the Premier League; allowing the competition and our clubs to be seen by the maximum possible number of fans across the country.

 

“The BBC has done a fantastic job for fans of Premier League clubs by providing quality coverage and analysis across their programmes.”

 

BBC director of sport Barbara Slater added: “We’ve seen audiences for MOTD grow in recent years and the programme remains one of the BBC’s best loved and most iconic brands.

 

“The new contract will see MOTD celebrate its 50th birthday.”

The BBC retained the rights with a bid of £179.7m.

 

The first ever Match of the Day was broadcast on 22 August 1964 and top-flight rights have switched between BBC and ITV since then.

 

Premier League highlights returned to Match of the Day in 2004-05.

 

The show is hosted by former England striker Gary Lineker, with Alan Hansen, Mark Lawrenson and Alan Shearer among the regular pundits.

Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium is set for a sell-out attendance for the first time in five-and-a-half years in national soccer team manager, Gary Speed’s first home game in charge against England on Saturday, March 26.

The Euro 2012 qualifier is on track to sell the 69,000 tickets available for the event after the Football Association of Wales (FAW) announced that the game was already close to capacity.

The FAW released a statement, reading: “Due to overwhelming demand we are now in a position to suspend ticket sales for the time being.”

Jonathan Ford, FAW chief executive, confirmed the majority of tickets had gone to Welsh fans, adding: “I’m really delighted to say: six weeks to go and we have sold out the Millennium Stadium.”

In the interview with BBC Wales, Ford continued: “We have an allocation to the English – 10% [of the tickets] go to the FA, but the rest we had to sell to local people. We weren’t able to go out on a local sale so we had to go direct to the [Welsh] clubs.”

That ticket initiative ensured Welsh clubs could effectively keep 25% from the ticket sales. It also ensured tickets would not fall go to England beyond the allocation to the FA.

Wales’ last Millennium Stadium full house was a 0-1 defeat to England in September 2005 when Joe Cole scored the winner in a 2006 World Cup qualifier in front of 70,715 fans in Europe’s 12th-biggest sporting arena.

Sri Lanka Cricket has offered the local television rights to the new Carlton Sports Network for a three-year period, order after the sports channel emerged the sole bidder.

Carlton Sports Network (CSN) was formed last February and its chief executive, diagnosis Nishantha Ranatunga is also the present secretary of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC).

Cricket board chief Upali Dharmadasa said the governing body’s sponsorship committee decided to give CSN the rights from 2012-2015, cialis the Colombo-based Daily Mirror newspaper said.

Last month, SLC’s executive committee also approved CSN’s 125 million rupee bid for three-years, the paper said. 

Ranatunga’s conflict of interest with the governing body and the sports channel, was raised by Sri Lanka Parliament’s Committee On Public Enterprises (COPE) which probed the cash-strapped cricket board last year.

“The dissatisfaction of the Committee was expressed on offering the tender to an organisation in which the Secretary of the Cricket Board was functioning as the CEO,” said COPE in a report tabled in parliament last year.

Carlton Sports also benefits from a government directive last July, which mandated local television and radio broadcast rights for cricket matches to be awarded to only state media or dedicated sports channels.

CSN was the only dedicated sports media channel at the time the law came into effect, the report said.

Carlton Sports first won the local TV rights for Australia’s tour of Sri Lanka in June last year.

English Premier League soccer club Sunderland has claimed that the last year, to July 2010, was one of “growth and development” despite announcing an annual loss of US$41.12m, a figure $3.22m deeper than the year previous.

Sunderland’s chief executive Steve Walton admitted that the club was “facing challenging economic times, both nationally and regionally”.

However, having only run up to the summer of 2010, the latest figures do no incorporate two major dealings in the club’s history. Firstly, the record signing of Ghanaian international striker Asamoah Gyan and secondly the club’s record sale in star man Darren Bent, whose transfer to rivals Aston Villa is reported to be a potential sum of $38.7m

Turnover rose to $105.46m but operating expenses – which include players’ wages and utilities charges – also went up, to $113.5m.

During the period Sunderland, known as the Black Cats, spent $42.25m on transfers, signing 10 players and taking three more on loan.

Mr Walton said: “There has been significant investment made to improve our playing squad and we are now starting to see the benefits of that investment.”

He said the support of owner Ellis Short put the club in a secure position, converting a further $30.6m of loans into shares in the club.

cialis helvetica, sans-serif;”>Video sharing platform Dailymotion has announced it has signed an exclusive partnership with the All England Lawn Tennis Club (Championships) Limited (AELTC).

Following this agreement, it will stream live content from The Championships, Wimbledon 2012, to tennis fans in the UK, US and South America (excluding Brazil).

Live @ Wimbledon is claimed to be able to “blend live tennis with the off-court buzz of a day at Wimbledon” to give fans more interaction and engagement. It will be presented by former tennis stars Annabel Croft and Mats Wilander and will be on air every day for the full two weeks of The Championships.

The AELTC is using Dailymotion’s technology platform to deliver this content on wimbledon.com and the official mobile iPhone and Android apps, and on Dailymotion, whose global audience reaches 115 million monthly unique visitors.

Chairman of the English Football League, Greg Clarke spoke at a UK parliamentary inquiry into soccer governance yesterday, February 15, warning that clubs are heading towards the “precipice” because of excessive debt levels.

Clarke told MPs on the culture, media and sport select committee: “Debt’s the biggest problem. If I had to list the 10 things about football that keep me awake at night, it would be debt one to 10.

“The level of debt is absolutely unsustainable. We are heading for the precipice and we will get there quicker than people think.”

The Football League has set up working parties to investigate all three of its divisions and it will publish a five-year plan aimed at improving the finances and running of its 72 clubs.

Clarke added: “We will hope to catalyse change. We will share it with our chairmen and say this where you are going unless you change now.”

Speaking upon the appointment of David Bernstein as chairman of the Football Association, Clarke added: “I would be amazed if he doesn’t drive hard for independent directors – he comes from a background where it’s normal to have independent directors. And he will have our support.

Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association also shared Clarke’s fears, stating: “The game has never had more income but on the other hand has never had more debt.

“It is going to be open house again if we are not careful. The transfer market can be a vehicle for abuse because of the vast amounts of money involved. There needs to be some form of control on agents.”

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