Events

International Olympic Committee chief Juan Antonio Samaranch presided over an historic weekend of change in Switzerland's Olympic capital but now faces a tougher test of his powers of influence.

Morocco's 2006 World Cup campaign boss said during a lobbying visit to Nigeria that Africa should make only a single bid to host the tournament.Morocco and South Africa are among five nations bidding to host the 2006 finals along with Brazil, England and Germany."FIFA may find it easier to reject Africa's bid if both Morocco and South Africa insist on presenting their bids, citing lack of unity," Driss Benhima, head of the Morocco 2006 bid committee, told reporters.Benhima said the Confederation of African Football had to evolve a fair method of choosing either Morocco or South Africa. CAF are due to discuss the issue at their next Congress in Accra, Ghana in February.

The International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) has signed a new agreement with ISL Worldwide.

South African cricket president Raymond White is facing a motion to oust him as a campaign to appoint a non-white chief executive gathers momentum.

Tickets.com, a leading one-stop online provider of sports, entertainment and travel tickets and event information, has been named as the Official Ticketing Services Supplier for the 2002 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

Sports fans will not be able to access moving pictures on the Internet during the Sydney 2000 Games, with International Olympic Committee members seeking to protect the rights of their broadcast sponsors.

Rapidly shedding its image as a grey, northern industrial city, Manchester will project a youthful, vibrant image at the first Commonwealth Games of the new millennium.

Russian flagship carrier Aeroflot is seeing a passenger boom on flights from Rio de Janeiro to Moscow as Brazilian soccer fans seek a cheap way of travelling to Europe for the World Cup soccer finals.

There would be no backing down on the commitment to provide cheap tickets for the 2000 Sydney Games, New South Wales Olympics Minister Michael Knight has said.

Malaysia, despite an economic crisis back home, wants tothe 2006 Asian Games and have appealed to other nations not to bid, saying itwould be a waste of money.

Outbreaks of hooliganism by English and German fans in France should not affect those nations' bids to stage the 2006 World Cup finals, FIFA president Sepp Blatter said.

Sunday night's World Cup final between France and Brazil set a new television audience record in host country France with an average of 23.626 million people watching, a spokesman for audience measurement body Mediametrie said on Monday.

Canal+ has purchased the television rights to Premier League football in Scandinavia.

Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of the International Olympic Committee, has called a crisis meeting of the IOC Executive Board to discuss the use of drugs in sport.

Norway?s bid to stage this year?s ice hockey world championships could be scuppered by a new anti-alcohol sponsorship law.

Great Britain will stage the next rugby league World Cup in 2000, it was announced in Sydney. The newly-formed Rugby League International Federation (RLIF) has put in place a calendar of events covering the next three years.