Pacific Islands

The Fiji Rugby Union has signed a $42,000 (EUR43,500) sponsorship deal with Nestle aimed at improving the game at the grassroots level.

With only a month to go until the World Cup begins soccer fever builds with Soccerex, the international conference and exhibition for the business of soccer, the semi-finals of the Champions League, the controversial FIFA Executive EGM and the Oceania Football Confederation Congress in Tonga.

The 2002 Pacific Rim rugby tournament has been scrapped to make way for regional qualifiers for the 2003 World Cup, Japanese officials of the game have confirmed.

Australian rugby union chief John O'Neill is to push for a Super 15 series in 2003 with the addition of a combined Pacific team from Tonga, Samoa and Fiji.

A South Pacific rugby union team seems likely to become a reality with England proposed as its first opposition.

The first round of the World Sevens Series has been moved from Dubai to Durban in South Africa, the International Rugby Board (IRB) has said.

The International Rugby Board (IRB) has defended its plan to stage an annual match between the northern and southern hemispheres after criticism from the Australian and New Zealand unions.

Sir Rodney Walker, the UK’s Rugby Football League (RFL) chairman, has rejected calls for his resignation after making losses at last year’s World Cup.

Dick Pound has been persuaded to stay on as chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) despite earlier claims he would resign from the post following his defeat in the race to be president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

A bruising three-month battle for the FIFA presidency reaches a climax on Monday when Sepp Blatter and Lennart Johansson contest the biggest job in soccer.

A Dutch proposal to limit the number of countries allowed to bid to host the World Cup was rejected by FIFA's 51st Congress on Monday.

The Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) said on Wednesday that Port Moresby would host the 2001 OFC Club Championship.

The Oceania Football Confederation's extraordinary congress called to elect a new president ended in disarray on Thursday without the vote being taken.

Drivers have got lost and some buses have simply not turned up, but team officials have said the biggest teething problem of the 16th Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur - transport - is getting better.

Les McDonald, president of the International Triathlon Union (ITU), the world governing body of the Olympic sport, has been forced into a court case in Vancouver, British Columbia, over allegations that recent elections to his organisation were fixed, with some national federations being denied their right to vote.

Tickets for Melbourne?s 2006 Commonwealth Games look set to be snapped up as quickly as Olympic seats, according to the organising committee.

Melbourne has been officially named as the host city for the 2006 Commonwealth Games, Australian officials said.

Australian rugby's most powerful administrator has warned British teams that they risk being snubbed by Australia if they persist in picking weakened squads to tour Down Under.