Italy

Shares in Lazio, the Rome football club, were oversubscribed more than six times in their public offering this week.

The IOC has annunced an autumn programme of evaluation visits to cities hoping to stage the 2006 Winter Olympics.

Lazio, the Rome soccer club, will kick off its roadshow to publicise its offering of shares to private and institutional investors.

Italian club's prospectus will aim at investors rather than fans, according to Patrick Harverson of British newspaper The Financial Times.

Brazil's megastar soccer striker Ronaldo had a chance to make amends with the agent of the highest authority when he realised his dream of meeting Pope John Paul.

World Cycling Limited (WCL) and the Polish Cycling Federation have announced the founding of the Solidarity Cup, an international friendship series consisting of two major cycling events in Poland and the United States.

ENIC Plc, which controls three European soccer clubs, has said that European soccer authority UEFA's decision to block clubs with common ownership from playing each other in European competition is in breach of European Union law.

Inter Milan and Nike Italy have concluded a sponsorship deal valid from July 1998 until 2009. This covers the supply of a complete range of sportswear and accessories for the squad and its youth teams.

A crippling pilots strike kept most Air France flights grounded for a second day on Tuesday but negotiations were set to resume in the afternoon, raising hopes the dispute could be settled before the start of the World Cup.

Sepp Blatter, one of two contenders for the presidency of soccer's world governing body FIFA, has promised to bring the World Cup to Africa in 2006 if he is elected next week.

Cameroon's soccer chief Vincent Onana is being investigated by judicial authorities over the alleged sale in Europe of World Cup tickets meant for Cameroon fans, officials said on Friday.

Colombian leftist guerrillas toasted Brazil's and Mexico's World Cup victories and vowed to fight for the right of every Colombian to enjoy "happiness, fiesta and football."

A plan put forward at a UEFA meeting in Paris on Tuesday would give wild card entries to European champions of the past five years who have not been able to earn places in any of the three European club competitions.

International athletics chief Primo Nebiolo has said he no longer fears the stadium for next year's world championships will not be ready on time.

A Czech company has sent 2,000 condoms, each tipped with a soccer ball and the flag of a participating nation, to the World Cup tournament in France.

A Belgian court will rule on whether the system of transfer fees for soccer players violates European Union rules, in a case reminiscent of a dispute over Brazilian striker Ronaldo's move to Inter Milan in 1997.