Events

Former South African President Nelson Mandela said on Tuesday that South Africa deserved to be the first African country to host the World Cup.

Australian media tycoons Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer are reported to be involved in a bidding war for the digital and internet rights to English cricket.

Plans to sell naming rights to the Green Bay Packers new $295m stadium have taken a step further.

Be Here, a US provider of internet video technology, and FOX Sports Net have teamed up to explore ways of adapting internet technology to live sports television production.

NBA fans in more than 750 million households around the world will be able to tune into the NBA Finals 2000 featuring the Los Angeles Lakers and the Indiana Pacers.

Japan has begun the official two-year countdown to the 2002 World Cup, unveiling a display indicating the number of days to go until the first match in the tournament it is co-hosting with South Korea.

The reconstruction of Wembley Stadium, the centrepiece of England's 2006 World Cup bid, has been given the green light, according to UK media reports.

While English football awaits the announcement of the winning bids for the Premier League?s broadcast rights, England?s lower divisions are also in negotiations over a new deal.

The BBC has pulled its flagship Saturday sports show Grandstand from its schedules this weekend as a result of intense competition from its rival free-to-air channels.

Bobby Robson, the Newcastle United - and former England - manager, has been named non-executive director of a Sunday newspaper publisher devoted to non?league football, reports the Financial Times.

Fox Sports International has launched a new all-sports channel for Central and Eastern Europe.

The Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) may raise $A85m in ticket sales to events it had described as "sold out".

Two soccer fans were shot and wounded on their way to a soccer game in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday after supporters of an opposing team besieged their bus, a local news service reported.

Rights fees for the major sports properties are set to keep on rising ? according to a panel of experts at the SportBusiness 2000 conference.

Smaller Premier League clubs were ? railroaded? into signing some aspects of yesterday?s broadcast tender agreement, according to a report in The Guardian newspaper.

D.C United has attracted an offer from US cable company Discovery Communications to become a major sponsor of the MLS club in a one-year $150,000 (#95,000) deal, reports the soccer industry newsletter, the Soccer Investor Weekly Bulletin.