The Japanese Grand Prix Suzuka circuit has agreed an extension to continue as a fixture of the Formula One calendar until at least 2012.

With venues and hopeful hosting cities emerging at a rapid rate, the circuit’s long–term Formula One future looks more uncertain, having held it’s first Grand Prix in 1987.

This season was set to be the longest ever F1 schedule until the Bahrain Grand Prix was called off because of civil unrest, however it is unknown as to whether the race will be reinstated in the 2011 calendar at a later date. This season’s 53 lap Suzuka race will be held on 9th October.

F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone has said 20 races, which the 2011 was scheduled for, is the maximum the F1 calender should be with the United States scheduled to return to F1 with a new track in Austin, Texas in 2012 and Russia joining the calendar for the first time in 2014.

This leaves circuits who pay lower fees and have shorter contracts, such as Suzuka, vulnerable to dropping off the list entirely.  Suzuka, like Britain’s Silverstone circuit, is not supported by national or local government, meaning the US$48.4m-$80.6m a year to host the race has to be privately funded. 

According to media reports, Suzuka look particularly vulnerable following a decline in Japanese involvement in the sport after the Honda team pulled out of F1 in 2008, with Toyota following a year later.

The website which claims to be the world’s first social betting website, Bodugi.com, has launched.

In combining a unique betting game with social network slant to encourage interaction between users, players can join a ‘table’ of members and predict various aspects of a sporting contest, with a stake starting from £5 (US$8.1). The most accurate predictions win cash prizes dependent on the number of players ‘at the table’.

The website incorporates a chat facility via Facebook and Twitter integration and public player profiles, including biographies and direct message facilities. Horseracing TV channel Racing UK is a launch partner and will provide exposure for Bodugi.com.

Co-founder Dave Nevison stated: “The Bodugi.com offering will change the face of the online gambling industry. Our unique game combined with social networking means that Bodugi is perfectly placed to challenge the established players in the sector.”

A Bodugi.com mobile application, available through Symbian, Android and iPhone devices, will be released in April 2011.

The London Assembly believes the total of 14,000 London 2012 tickets that have been reserved for Government officials and politicians is “excessive”, insisting that all public bodies “show restraint” when bidding for preferential access to tickets as well as publishing a register of tickets received.

The Assembly’s Economic Development, Culture, Sport and Tourism (EDCST) published a report today, March 10 – entitled “Just the Ticket” warning that public confidence could be damaged if government bodies buy too many tickets or fail to publicly account for them.

Tickets for London 2012 are set to go on sale on March 15, and the latest report – put together after discussions with the Games’ organisers director of ticketing in December – presents a timely nudge to the members of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG).

Out of a total of 8 million tickets for the Olympics, 6.6 million will be sold directly to the public with the remainder sold to sponsors and athletes, through VIP packages and through foreign Olympic associations. 

London 2012 has made available for sale 9,000 tickets for the Government, 2,000 for the Mayor of London, and 100 each for the London Boroughs.

The report notes in its foreword: “Our outstanding concerns are about the tickets being made available for sale to various public bodies.

“We have been making the case since our first report on ticketing, in March 2010, that public confidence will be dented if large numbers of VIPs are seen to be getting preferential access to tickets ahead of the general public.

“In this report, we call on public bodies to show restraint when bidding for preferential access to tickets. In our view, the public should ultimately be the judges of the extent to which public bodies have shown such restraint.

“To make this judgement they will need to know exactly who has asked for tickets, why, and how they will be funded.

“That is why we call on public bodies to publish a register of all the tickets they have received.”

Dee Doocey, the deputy chair of the EDCST committee, commented: “Reserving 14,000 tickets for Government does seem excessive. 

“Every seat taken up by a Government official or politician is one less seat for the public so it’s vital that Government bodies are completely open and transparent about who gets them, why and who ultimately foots the bill.”

The search has begun by the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) to seek world-class contractors to transform the Olympic Park once the 2012 Games have finished, they have announced.

The ODA are looking for contractors to deliver the agreed plans to transform the parklands, infrastructure and those venues not covered by existing contracts for their long term use after the Games.

Once the ODA’s legacy transformation is complete the Olympic Park will be handed over to the legacy owners, primarily the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC) and Lee Valley Regional Park Authority.

ODA Director of Design and Regeneration Alison Nimmo said: “We are on track to complete the Olympic Park venues, infrastructure and parklands ready for London 2012 and are putting in place a team to transform them for their legacy use after the Games.

“Legacy was at the heart of the London 2012 bid and 75p of every pound spent cleaning-up what was a former industrial area and creating the Olympic Park is an investment in the regeneration of east London.

“The venues, sports facilities, parklands, allotments, roads, bridges, footpaths, cyclepaths, energy and utilities networks will form the foundation of the long-term development of this part of London for future generations.”

The ODA is advertising two opportunities to deliver the Olympic Park legacy transformation, one for the south and north of the park, which include:

* Completing the 250 acre legacy parklands to create the largest urban public park created in the UK for over a century including wetlands, woods, meadows, heathland, lawns riverside gardens, frog ponds, 250 benches and seating throughout the Park.

* delivering the legacy cycling facilities in the Velopark including minor internal works to the Velodrome, creating a one mile closed road cycle circuit and 7km mountain bike track and modifying the Games time BMX track.

* creating four football fields (2.1 hectares) worth of allotments.

* delivering football fields on east Marsh.

* removing innovative temporary elements of Games-time bridges and concourses to create an intimate park well connected internally and with the local area.

* removing temporary security infrastructure, extending the parklands and completing 15km of cycle and foot paths and a road network connecting the Olympic Park with surrounding neighbourhoods.

* converting venues and other buildings for their legacy use including removing temporary external elements from the International Broadcast Centre and minor internal works to the Handball Arena and Velodrome. The legacy conversion of the Olympic Stadium, Olympic Village and Aquatics Centre are covered by existing contracts.

* removing temporary security infrastructure including the perimeter fence.

A lack of sponsorship and poor ticket sales have led to the cancellation of an international showjumping event scheduled to be held at the Sheffield Arena next month between 22-24 April.

The Yorkshire International Showjumping Event has been reluctantly cancelled due to facing “substantial financial losses” according to its organisers.

British Showjumping, cialis which had several national finals at the show, health revealed that it had been left in “a difficult position”.

A statement from the organisers said: “This decision has not been taken lightly but is a result of insufficient levels of sponsorship in an increasingly difficult economic climate, together with a general lack of support by potential visitors to the event… in terms of advance ticket sales.

“This is an incredibly sad day, but the costs of running a three-star international jumping event at a major indoor venue are significant.

“Balanced against the limited support we have received to date, we could not possibly contemplate bearing the substantial financial losses we were facing.”

Sponsors, athletes, officials and contractors who had agreed to support the event were released from their obligations to the event in order to seek alternative opportunities.

The statement continued: “There is no way we could consider running an event and not being in a position to pay everybody at the end of the day. added.

“It is generally acknowledged that there is a lack of international jumping shows within the UK, never more so than in the run-up to an event such as the London Olympics in 2012.

“We intend to pursue other options to run an international jumping show at a venue in Yorkshire at some time in the not-too-distant future.”

English Championship soccer club and league leaders Queens Park Rangers have been charged along with club chairman Gianni Paladini with seven breaches of Football Association (FA) violations relating to the contract rights of player Alejandro Faurlin.

Faurlin, 24, joined QPR in 2009 from Instituto in his native Argentina in a deal worth US$5.6m.

The FA said in a statement it had concerns over the alleged existence of an agreement between the club and a third party in respect to Faurlin’s rights, as well as an alleged failure of the club to notify the governing body of the agreement.

The FA added that QPR was also charged for allegedly using or seeking to pay an unauthorized agent over the signing.

According to the FA, the club and Paladini were also charged for false information contained in documents relating to a contract extension Faurlin signed in October, without providing specific details of any of the allegations.

The club released a statement on its website reading: “Having cooperated fully with the F.A.’s investigation, QPR and Mr. Paladini shall be denying all of the charges and requesting a formal F.A. hearing to determine them”.

QPR said it is confident that there was “no deliberate wrongdoing involved.”

view helvetica, health sans-serif;”>A national poll conducted by Bloomberg last week has revealed that 43 per cent of those surveyed side with the players union and 20 per cent with the National Football League (NFL) owners with regards to the labour dispute in the game. The remaining 37 per cent either don’t follow football or aren’t sure which side they favor.

advice helvetica, sans-serif;”>David Carter, executive director of the Sports Business Institute at the University of Southern California, said in an interview“Fans live vicariously through the players, and are more sympathetic to player causes.”

Among the issues are what share of the league’s US$9 billion in revenue players should get and whether to expand the season to 18 from 16 games and impose a rookie wage scale.

The NFL Players Association has rejected owners’ demands and say the teams should open their accounting books. The union is also seeking improved health care for retirees, some of whom suffer from nerve damage, joint deterioration and the effects of repeated head trauma.

While the NFL has offered to reveal some financial data, it has refused to show everything the union sought. The NFL said the data offered is more than has ever made available to the union, including some information that it doesn’t disclose to its own clubs.

London 2012 organisers have announced that Olympic venues will be protected from marketing stunts during the Games through measures against unauthorised trading around the venues. 

Sponsorship money for the Games contribute more than half of the £2bn (US$3.25bn) needed to stage the event, therapy so organisers intend to avoid any unauthorised association to the brand, therapy that would detract from the rights of the official sponsors. 

The consultation document, order released this week, reveals that all unauthorised billboard adverts, posters, flyers, give-aways and projected, moving and aerial advertising, within a few hundred metres of the Olympic and Paralympic venues, will be banned. 

The proposed measures will only be implemented on a small area around the venues, and only around the time the events are taking place. 

Olympics Minister Hugh Robertson, stated: ‘Sponsorship is part of modern international sport providing a vital source of funding. They aim to strike the right balance between preventing unauthorised advertising and trading that damage the rights of the sponsors and enabling businesses to operate as usual’.

Sports marketing agency World Sport Group (WSG) has taken strong objection to the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) move to float tender for television, internet, mobile and radio rights of the Indian Premier League (IPL), announced yesterday, March 8.

In a strongly worded statement, WSG has stated that BCCI’s move is in contrary to its submission in the Bombay High Court which restrained it from entering into any agreement with any third party for the worldwide broadcast rights contract for the IPL till the dispute is resolved.

The statement from WSG read as follows: “In its strongest public statement yet, World Sport Group (WSG) today condemns the BCCI’s decision to issue a tender notice for media rights to the Indian Premier League (“IPL”) even though the BCCI is yet to have its appeal in a dispute with WSG admitted by the Supreme Court following the Bombay High Court’s ruling in WSG’s favour.

“The invitation to tender is contrary to the decision of the Bombay High Court made by its ruling on 23 February 2011 and WSG believes it is an unfair, unwarranted and unnecessary attempt by the BCCI to create facts on the ground in the context of the Supreme Court’s forthcoming consideration of the admissibility of an appeal itself.

“The BCCI has issued a tender in spite of the undertakings given by it to the Bombay High Court, and WSG is advised that the tender violates the undertaking the BCCI has given to the Supreme Court.

“WSG is currently challenging the BCCI’s unfounded termination of its contract for the IPL’s worldwide media rights outside of the Indian sub-continent. BCCI’s purported termination of the contract was in itself a contravention of the contract’s terms for termination and was based on totally false allegations for which no evidence has ever been produced.

“In the recent decision of the Division Bench of the Bombay High Court on 23 February 2011, the High Court clearly stated that the BCCI had not produced any prima facie evidence that WSG had committed any fraud and promptly invited the parties to pursue the application for the appointment of an arbitrator in accordance with the very contract the BCCI was seeking to terminate.

“WSG notes that the unusually worded public tender notice make no mention whatsoever of the current proceedings before the Supreme Court. Further, based on information available in the market, WSG is also recently aware that a broadcasting agency close to the BCCI has already made claims to third parties in certain markets that it will be broadcasting the IPL on its channels. These claims have been made prior to the tender being issued and whilst the Court proceedings were taking place.

“The BCCI’s invitation to tender illustrates its continuing unwillingness to follow due legal process. WSG will take the necessary action to protect its commercial rights and those of its licensees around the world.”

The International Rugby Board has confirmed that the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union (SLRFU) has been suspended from full IRB member status with immediate effect after failing to conduct appropriate Board elections in accordance with IRB Bye Laws.

The decision, remedy taken by the IRB Council after a comprehensive review of the membership status of the SLRFU, follows ongoing concerns regarding the governance and management of the Union and its ability to meet IRB requirements to hold an Annual General Meeting and elections in accordance with its constitution by January 31, 2011.

The SLRFU will now revert to IRB Associate Member status with a further review to be held on April 1, 2011 pending the successful completion of the Union’s AGM and Board elections.

The SLRFU remains entitled to participate in Asian Rugby Football Union competitions subject to the Regional Association’s rules.