Features

English Football Association (FA) director and ex-FIFA Task Force Member, Heather Rabbatts, on the future of world football’s governing body and how women’s sport is entering the commercial mainstream.

Broadcasters, event organisers and sponsors have tried and failed to crack the sporting code in India, in an attempt to reach the country’s billion-plus cricket-mad population. We hear from the insiders who have succeeded.

Athletics is on the brink of new leadership for the first time in 16 years, with two Olympic and athletic legends – Sebastian Coe and Sergey Bubka - facing off in the battle to succeed Lamine Diack as president of the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations). We asked industry insiders who is odds on to win the sport’s biggest race.

Owen Evans speaks to Gian-Franco Kasper, newly-appointed interim chairman of SportAccord, about his plan to dismantle the union in order to get it back into the Olympic Family.

Elisha Chauhan finds out about the fast-paced career moves of former AEG senior executive, Mike Tomon, who became president of north American sports and events for fan engagement agency, Legends.

FIFA Fan Fests were a natural development of the large-scale public viewings that were staged by some of host cities during the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Korea and Japan. Although FIFA had no official involvement in these events, their high interest and popularity encouraged world football’s governing body to hold the first official Fan Fests at the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

The Holland Heineken House is an all-round meeting place, office and famous party venue jointly organised by the Dutch brewer Heineken and the Dutch Olympic committee NOC*NSF. The House has been set up at every summer and winter Olympic Games since 1992 in Barcelona, and is opened up to visitors during the day to watch Olympic events on big screens amongst providing other entertainment.

With fan festivals attracting huge populations of the host city, the top priority for rights-holders is safety. Helmut Spahn, director general of ICSS (the International Centre for Sport Security), tells Elisha Chauhan how difficult it is for event organisers to address concerns in this area.

Elisha Chauhan asks leading fan zone stakeholders how they organise their fan festivals and what makes them successful, including case studies of best practice, as well as how to manage safety and security at these mass participation events.

Owen Evans speaks to Gian-Franco Kasper, newly-appointed interim chairman of SportAccord, about his plan to dismantle the union in order to get it back into the Olympic Family.

With investment from traditional financial institutions still difficult to secure for sports properties looking to develop their facilities, sports fans are stepping forward to help fund projects. Elisha Chauhan finds out how and why.

Ahead of its second edition, organisers of tennis’ Wuhan Open is tripling the size of its host venue to 15,000 seats – more than all four grand slam showpiece courts. Elisha Chauhan asks if it is too much, too soon.

Owen Evans spoke to Jonathan First, president of United World Sports, about plans to launch the United States’ first professional rugby sevens league next season.

Here are two sobering thoughts for football federation officials and sports marketing executives around the world. 

In the end it was inevitable. As Marius Vizer stood amidst the smoking, smouldering ruins of SportAccord, the freshly re-elected president knew that he had no choice but to quit.