Premier League club Manchester City have been charged by the Football Association for failing to ensure that anti-doping officials knew where their players were for drug testing.
City are accused of failing to provide accurate information on three separate occasions, which is understood to be due to a change of rules.
The Citizens have until January 19 to contest the charge.
City are likely to receive a fine if they do not contest the ruling.
Location: Bisham Abbey National Sports Centre, ambulance Berkshire
Closing Date: January 20, adiposity 2017
Overview:
Great Britain Hockey Limited is the organisation responsible for overseeing the selection, price cheap preparation and participation of men’s and women’s teams in Olympic Games and other international events. Current President Richard Leman who has completed his allowable terms will be stepping down in 2017 and in accordance with the requirements of the company’s Articles of Association the organisation is seeking to appoint a President for the next 4 years.
The role includes chairing the GBHL board meetings (3 per year), working closely with the Great Britain Chief Operating Officer and liaising with the company’s key stakeholders including the three associations of the home countries and the British Olympic Association. There will also be the requirement to represent GB hockey at other meetings and events.
How to apply: send your Curriculum Vitae and a covering letter to Michele Townsend by email at HR@gbhockey.co.uk.
LeSports, clinic China’s leading Internet-based eco-sports company and Branded, abortion the Hong Kong-based event marketing agency responsible for the highly successful YouTube FanFest and award winning ‘All That Matters’ conference series, today announced the speaker line up for their upcoming joint event LeSports Connects: The China Sports Forum.
????????????????????????Branded??????LeSports Connects?????????????? Branded?????????????????YouTube FanFest???????“Matters”?????
The 3-day invitation-only event is being held at event partner location Mission Hills, China – the world’s largest golf resort, from 28 – 30 November 2016. The event kicks off with a golf day for all delegates, followed by 2 days of conference content focusing on the rapidly growing China sports industry, with topics including:
??3?????????????????? – ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
1. The China sports industry and its influence on the international sports scene
– Showcase the domestic industry – current research and trends, and a look to the future
– Technology and media – updates on new forms of content distribution and fan engagement
– Chinese Super League – the business opportunities and the future of football in China
– Investing in international sports companies and services – what are investors looking for and how do you source China investment?
2. The international sports industry turns to China
– Bringing international leagues, events and athletes to China
– Celebrating failure – what are some of the potential pitfalls and learnings
– International sponsorship and brand opportunities featuring case studies from top global brands
– Football Matters – what are the leading global clubs doing in China?
1.?????????????????
– ?????? – ?????????????
– ????? – ?????????????
– ???????? – ??????????
– ??????????? – ??????????????????
2.??????????
– ????????????????
– ???? – ??????????????????
– ??????????——?????????????
– ???? – ??????????????
Speakers announced for the first LeSports Connects: The China Sports Forum include:
???LeSports Connects:?????????????:
Rio Ferdinand ??·????, former England professional footballer ?????????
Lei Zhenjian ???, Founder & CEO ??? & CEO, LeSports ????
Ma Guoli ???, Vice Chairman ????, LeSports ????
Tenniel Chu ???, Vice Chairman ???, Mission Hills Group ?????
Hou Yuhua ???, CEO, Weisai Sports ????
Chen Xin ??, Vice President ???, WeCapital ????
Zhang Zhe ??, Senior Operations Director ??????, Weibo Sports ????
Zhao Jun??, General Manager???CEO, China Sports Media ????
Li Sheng ???Founder &CEO ????CEO, SECA World ????
Beatrice Lee, CEO, Baofeng Sports ????
Stephanie McMahon, Chief Brand Officer & TV Personality ????? & ????, WWE ??????
Peter Kenyon, Partner ???, Opto Advisors????????
Andrea Radrizzani, President & Founder ?? & ???, Aser Media??????
Zhang Yi, Chief Editor ??, Sohu Sports ????
Liu Jianhong ???, Co-President ????, LeSports ????
Xie Chenguang ???, Founding Partner ?????, Kaixing Capital ????
Shi Yiying ???, Director of Sports ??????, Jiemian.com ??
Pan Shijian ???, Founding Partner ?????, Kaixing Capital ????
Zhang Yuqiang ???, Co-founder ?????, Sports Money ?????
Han Mu ??, Founder ???, Lanxiong Sports ????
Richard Young, Managing Director ?????, NFL China ?????????????
Chris Park, Senior Vice President ?????, Major League Baseball ???????????
Victor Cui, CEO, ONE Championship ONE???????????
Jamie Reigle, Commercial Director ????, Manchester United ??????????
Xavier Asensi, Managing Director – APAC ????????, Barcelona FC ?????????
Fernando de Matos, Head of Sponsorships AP Region ???????, Visa ??
Caroline Darcy, Head of Sponsorship, Asia Pacific ???????, UBS ????
Adrian Toy, Regional Director, Marketing ???????, PUMA ??
Josh Black, CEO, ESP Properties, Asia Pacific??????????
Mickael Piantchenko, Asia Pacific Director ?????, ESL ??????
Tom Byer ????, Head Technical Advisor ??????, Chinese Ministry of Education ??????????
Andrew Collins, CEO, Mailman Group
Michael Cunnah, Chairman ???, iSportconnect????????
Catherine Gibbs, Head of Sponsorship ????, AIA ????
John Cappo, President ?? & CEO, AEG China ?????
Ben Flint, CEO, Asian Sponsorship News (ASN)????????
Scarlett Li, Founder ??? & CEO, Zebra Media ????
Richard Welbirg, Senior Reporter ????, TV Sports Markets??????
with many more to be announced
Interested parties can register their interest in attending at the official website: lesportsconnects.com
DirectAsia Group, buy a provider of direct-to-consumer insurance in Thailand and Singapore, has been announced as an Official Partner of Leicester City Football Club for the 2016/17 season.
Mr Edip Okur, Chief Executive Officer of DirectAsia Thailand, said: “We are delighted to be an Official Partner of Leicester City Football Club, a club with rich history and strong community values which closely align with our brand. We are confident that this partnership will enable us to further solidify our status as one of Asia’s Top Influential Brands.
“Like DirectAsia, Leicester City is an organisation with big ambitions. The club’s commitment to outperform far larger rivals both on and off the pitch through sound management, great teamwork and a close relationship with the fan base is something we greatly admire and we seek to employ the same principles in the conduct of our business with customers.
Scott Taylor, Executive Director of Project11, global sports marketing rights holder, said: “Our ever-expanding rights within the Premier League and LaLiga continue to grow at pace as we consistently seek and deliver the right brands for sponsorship, partnership and LED exposure for all clubs that we represent. We consult, understand and achieve the goals of our clients and clubs alike. We are delighted to have aligned Leicester City with DirectAsia, Thailand. Strategically they are a perfect fit: rich in culture with similar ambitions.”
Harj Hir, Head of Partnerships at Leicester City Football Club, said: “We are delighted to welcome DirectAsia on board our growing list of global partners. Our popularity in Asia, especially Thailand, has already demonstrated substantial growth for our partners in this region. We will work closely with DirectAsia to deliver the best possible return on their investment.”
US Open coverage helped Eurosport in the UK to have its best week on record with Adult Share of 0.95 (Eurosport 1 & Eurosport 2) in week 35.
Live coverage averaged 67k beating the 2015 avg on Sky Sports by +22%. The coverage also performed +57% year on year vs Eurosport’s live coverage (Day1-8), order and +17% better than the exclusive Aussie Open on Eurosport in Jan 16.
Full event coverage reached 2.8m, unhealthy up +2.2% vs Sky Sport’s 2015 total reach.
The QF match Murray v Nishikori had a 1 min peak audience of 641k as Murray lost and exited the tournament – the highest rating ever seen by the US Open on Eurosport.
The men’s final Djokovic v Wawrinka averaged 141k, beating the 2015 men’s final which averaged 82k on Sky Sports 1 (after being heavily delayed due to rain). It also beat the 2014 final which averaged 95k on Sky Sports 3.
A survey conducted by a British marketing agency said brands that sponsor the Olympics do not necessarily get the level of exposure they would expect.
The survey by Greenlight spoke to around 1,000 consumers aged 16 to 60-plus, broken down equally by gender. It asked questions about the Olympics in 2012 and showed almost half of respondents (47%) were unaffected by whether or not a brand was a sponsor, and as many as 18% of those surveyed said they didn’t even notice the sponsors. This was despite an Olympic sponsorship costing between £10m and £64m.
The brands remembered most in 2012 were Coca-Cola and McDonald’s with 42% and 38% of people, respectively, recalling their sponsorship at the Games.
However not a single personal surveyed remembered one of 2012’s biggest sponsors, Acer, while only 11% remembered P&G’s “Mother” campaign. Only 17% of UK consumers remembered Samsung’s involvement in the 2012 events.
The survey found that the younger audiences were the most receptive of sponsorship – 49% of 16-29 year olds feel their opinion of a brand would be improved if they were to sponsor the Games, the highest of any age group.
Despite the lack of recall for brands, the audience for 2016 looks promising – 73% of respondents intend to watch the 2016 Games on TV. 23% said they would watch online content, and 16% cited social media as their portal to the Games.
eSports is undergoing a level of growth most traditional sports can only dream of. In a few short years, it has transformed from a minor event to a sporting heavyweight – with investment and income to match.
Chester King is CEO of the International eGames Group – a company set up to assist the International eGames Committee (a not for profit) aimed at growing elite competitive video gaming (eSports) and shaping the future competitions: by creating a new global, medal only, competition – The eGames – where gamers compete for their country.
King outlined that the industry is closer than ever before to being acknowledged as important as a traditional sport, but there are still some final hurdles to clear:
“Everyone talks about eSports being the largest niche, what’s happening is that we are getting rid of the smokescreen of what actually is eSports and improving its creditability. If you take the video game industry as a whole, it turns over about $80 billion, eSports is about half a billion – the competitive event element. I think what’s happening is a lot of people and sponsors from traditional sport are aware that the demographic of the people who are playing and watching are the hard to reach demographic – the people who don’t watch TV anymore.”
Miles Jacobson, the studio director at Sports Interactive, who make the Football Manager series, agreed with King’s comments:
“Advertisers are really taking games seriously now, as they realise the amount of eyeballs they can reach… I think people in the sports industry need to take an interest, because eSports is talking to an audience that, at the minute, you’re struggling to get to. If you go to a football stadium or a rugby stadium, the audiences tend to be quite old, compared to when I was growing up, when it was mainly kids.”
Conversely, stadiums are now starting to sell out hosting eSports events, breaking new ground. Events are proving that live video gaming, either in stadiums, streaming, or on TV, is viable.
“Stadiums have started to sell out.” explained King. “In Poland there was an event called the Intel Extreme Masters. 120,000 people watched it live. But 25 million people watched it online, and ESL, a great eSports company, did the production on that.”
The rise of Twitch has also been key to the growth of eSports. Twitch allows gamers to broadcast their session online to anyone in the world. It has led to millions tuning in to watch the world’s top players showing off their skills, some pulling in audiences that TV channels would kill for. King explains how Twitch has also opened up elite-level eSports to a generation of viewers who have never played the games in question before:
“Twitch has been brilliant. It was bought by Amazon for around $1 billion and with the exposure from social media it has educated people about all the different games. I think the stats are that about 40% of the people who are watching a game have never actually played that game. But they are interested in watching competitive play.”
But still the greatest challenge the industry faces is from older authority figures, who don’t see what eSports has become. Because so many of eSports’ fans and star players are under the age of 20, their involvement in the sport is dependent on the support of teachers and parents. King wants to see a better understanding develop of what skills eSports can offer young people:
“I think the key thing is the life skills you get by playing eSports. Certain games are even better than chess – and you’ll never get a parent saying ‘Oh you’re playing too much chess!”. Obviously in moderation. At the elite level, their concentration levels are incredible, their response times are incredible. It also develops life skills like leadership, communication, cognitive response and dexterity.”
“We have chess clubs at schools, we should have eSports clubs at schools. Obviously, not all games are appropriate, but everything in moderation. What we are trying to promote is eSports can be part of a balanced life. You have traditional sports and eSports.”
The younger generation may have been won over, and are flocking to eSports in huge numbers. But for King the next battle is in the grass roots – where will the gamers of the future will come from, and are they being hindered, rather than nurtured, by authority figures around them. For King that’s where the next battle lies – for acceptance in wider society, to see the benefits eSports can bring to young people:
“It’s important for parents to acknowledge that it is good for you. At the moment, in my personal view, it is treated like a silly game, so parents think it is a waste of time. But if people knew that it was better for you than chess, and it’s good for future cyber skills, and cyber professionalism in the future, you could get a career from that.”
The eSports world is growing, and growing quickly. Jacobson said that it was “neigh-on impossible” to predict where the industry will be in 5 years as it is expanding so quickly.
But Chester King and the International eGames Group will likely be at the forefront of that growth – trying to remove obstacles on behalf of the industry as it reaches new heights.
Chester’s 
{jcomments on}
The IOC will take legal advice into banning Russia from the 2016 Olympic Games, in the aftermath of the McLaren report.
In a press release the IOC said:
“With regard to the participation of Russian athletes in the Olympic Games Rio 2016, the IOC will carefully evaluate the IP [McLaren] Report. It will explore the legal options with regard to a collective ban of all Russian athletes for the Olympic Games 2016 versus the right to individual justice. In this respect, the IOC will have to take the CAS decision on 21 July 2016 concerning the IAAF rules into consideration, as well as the World Anti-Doping Code and the Olympic Charter.”
The CAS case it refers to, is an on-going appeal by the Russians against a blanket ban enforced on their athletics team. If CAS overturns that ban, it seems unlikely Russia will be banned from the Games, as the same issue will be at the heart of it – whether athletes who have never tested positive for doping should be held responsible for the failings of their country.
In the meantime though the IOC did take several steps against Russia, including:
– Establishing a disciplinary commission to punish those implicated in the McLaren report
– The IOC will not organise or give patronage to any sports event or meeting in Russia.
– The IOC will not grant any accreditation to any official of the Russian Ministry of Sport for the Rio Games
– The IOC will initiate reanalysis, including forensic analysis, and begin a full inquiry into all Russian athletes who participated in the Olympic Winter Games Sochi 2014 and their coaches, officials and support staff
– The IOC asks all International Olympic Winter Sports Federations to freeze their preparations for major events in Russia, such as World Championships, World Cups or other major international competitions under their responsibility, and to actively look for alternative organisers.
– The IOC asks all IFs for a full inquiry and, in case of implication in infringements of the World Anti-Doping Code, sanctions against Russian National Federations by the respective IF. Such inquiries should be coordinated with the work of Mr Richard McLaren.
This appears to be everything shy of the IOC’s ‘nuclear option’ of banning all Russian athletes from the Olympics.
The McLaren report outlined extensive, state sponsored, cheating by the Russians from 2012 to 2015.
As many as 580 positives doping samples were removed from the system and hidden by various elements of the Russian government.
The FIFA Council has appointed Fatma Samba Diouf Samoura of Senegal as FIFA Secretary General (SG).
Samoura is a 21-year veteran of United Nations programmes who is currently the UN’s Resident/Humanitarian Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Nigeria.
The announcement was made by FIFA President Gianni Infantino at the 66th FIFA Congress in Mexico City.
Infantino said: “Fatma is a woman with international experience and vision who has worked on some of the most challenging issues of our time, clinic ”
“She has a proven ability to build and lead teams, medicine and improve the way organisations perform. Importantly for FIFA, she also understands that transparency and accountability are at the heart of any well-run and responsible organisation.”
Read more HERE
iSportconnect and Elite Performance Partners staged an intriguing and successful Sports Performance Masterclass in London earlier today.
The Grange Wellington provided the setting for the event which attracted top quality delegates from sports brands and organisations with expertise in the subject.
Panelists at the event were expertly moderated by David Slemen from EPP while panelists included representatives from the The Premier League, cialis The FA, ed English Institute of Sport, UK Athletics, British Triathlon, Southampton F.C., Capacity Consulting and Coventry City F.C.
The event was divided into three main discussions with the panels changing to discuss each topic including:
– Talent Development
– Overcoming Adversity in an Olympic Year
– Creating a Sustainable Winning Environment
The talent and development discussion was held by Ged Roddy from the Premier League, Chris Earle from The FA and Mark Upton from the English Institute of Sport.
The discussion revolved around youth policies of the company and being encouraging yet making sure the best talent was chosen.
The second panel featured Neil Black, Performance Director of UK Athletics and Brendan Purcell, Performance Director of British Triathlon.
The conversation was focused on planning ahead and focusing on events that are further away in terms of talent development and performance reviews.
The final panel featured Les Reed, Executive Director at Southampton Football Club, Ged Roddy, Mark Evans, Director of Capacity Consulting, Chris Anderson, Managing Director of Coventry City Football Club
They spoke at length about they have structured their organisations from the top down and developing as well as changing cultures within a sporting entity.
It was an event with panel discussions as well as questions from the audience which included delegates from: Arsenal Football Club, Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, British Swimming, British & Irish Lions, Fulham Football Club, ECB, British Athletics, Leicester Tigers, Watford Football Club, The LTA, Sport England and many more.
The next iSportconnect event will be the Ticketing and Hospitality Masterclass taking place on the 19th May,
To register your interest in that event please contact Calum Watkins at calum.watkins@isportconnect.com.
More event pictures below
In partnership with:
Host Partner:
Global Partners:
