United Kingdom

Fears that uncertainty over the Scottish national stadium Hampden Park could disrupt the staging of the CIS Insurance Cup final have been dismissed by the Scottish Football League.

Organisers of tennis? $800,000 London Indoor Championships have re-laid the Centre Court at the London Arena after top seed Yevgeny Kafelnikov branded it dangerous.

English Premier League clubs are expected to suceed in winning the `deferred rights? to their games when the contract for TV rights to the lucrative league is renegotiated later this year.

A FIFA inspection team has arrived in Morocco for a five-day visit, saying the country's bid file to host the 2006 World Cup was outstanding.

The editor of cricket bible Wisden, Matthew Engel, has announced he is quitting the job at the cricket almanack for at least a year because he was tired of having to write about England's "relentless failures".

A Moroccan official said he was surprised by the results of a poll of sports editors showing the country was bottom of the list of the five bidding to host the 2006 World Cup finals.

UK sport radio station talkSPORT has won the ball-by-ball rights to the next England/Australia Ashes series Down Under.

HOK +LOBB Sports Architecture has been appointed by Arsenal FC as architects for their proposed new 60,000 seat stadium in North London.

Deutsche Bank's Morgan Grenfell Private Equity is negotiating to sell its 12.5 percent of Bernie Ecclestone's Formula One for $550 million, according to report in London?s the Times newspaper.

England's plans to host a triangular one-day tournament involving India and Pakistan have been put on hold due to political tensions on the sub-continent, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) said.

Single Market Events, organisers of Brand Licensing London, have formed a strategic alliance with Avanstar Communications, organisers of the New York International Licensing Show.

The results of a poll of leading sports editors making England favourites to host the 2006 World Cup finals confirmed support had turned their way, Alec McGivan, director of England's bid, has said.

Representatives from large clubs in the Netherlands, Scotland, Belgium and Portugal met in Amsterdam this week to discuss the problems of being big fish in small soccer ponds.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter has praised England's bid to stage the 2006 World Cup finals and at the same time said it was not, as some had predicted, a foregone conclusion the finals would go to Africa.

The NatWest Group will sponsor this summer's triangular one-day cricket competition between England, the West Indies and Zimbabwe.

Former International soccer player?s David Platt (England), Roberto Baggio (Italy) and Alexei Lalas (USA) have taken undisclosed shareholdings in the a the global football web site, goalnet.com, in return fors.