Latin America

France marked the first anniversary of its World Cup victory with an agreement to invest around $50 million of the profits from the tournament in club sport and soccer.

A member of the British House of Lords has appealed for English soccer club Manchester United to not pull-out of this season's FA Cup tournament.

The British Government is looking for a new Sports Minister after Tony Banks decided to stand down in the latest Cabinet reshuffle.

Fox Sports World Espanol, the only U.S Spanish-language sports cable network, have recorded a ratings success with last month's Copa America.

South Africa will be the first of five countries to present their official bids to host the 2006 World Cup finals.

Those countries hoping to host soccer's 2006 World Cup have begun presenting their official bids to governing body FIFA.

Germany and Brazil will officially join the race to host the 2006 World Cup today when they submit their bids to FIFA.

At least 11 foreign teams will take part in a soccer tournament beginning in Dhaka on August 27, the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) has announced.

The trial of four Germans accused of beating a French policeman almost to death at last year's World Cup finals will not affect Germany's bid to host the tournament in 2006, German Football Federation (DFB) President Egidius Braun has said.

International television rights company CSI Ltd has recently acquired the exclusive television rights for home matches of the English football clubs in the UEFA Cup and the European Pro Beach Soccer League.

ISL Television is to exclusively represent the international broadcast rights to the five key domestic Brazilian football competitions under an agreement with the domestic rights-holders for Brazilian football: Clube dos Treze and Rede Globo.

World Cup Skateboarding (WCS), the world skateboarding sanctioning body and tour organiser, has appointed action-sport marketing agency IMS, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sportsworld Media Group plc to manage its commercial interests globally.

Brazil's national soccer team, who have won the World Cup four times, appear set for an unprecedented win over one of their most difficult opponents: the eight o'clock soap opera. For the full story see the FEATURES section of sportbusiness.com.

The popularity of the FA Cup is expected to be revived after the Football Association announced plans to play all four FA Cup quarter-finals on the same day.

The Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro wants to organise the 2007 Pan American Games.

If News Corp Ltd. succeeds in its bid to take acquire Hughes Electronics Corp., the Australian news giant could gain control of a merged Latin America satellite television entity, a source at Mexico's Grupo Televisa has said.