Media

PAUL Ridley, managing director of MUTV, the television station which is dedicated to Manchester United, has quit the channel less than a month after it was launched.

The New York Yankees' principal owner George Steinbrenner has been contacting his partners about possibly selling the baseball team to Cablevision, the cable television operator, Newsday has reported.

British soccer club Newcastle United is involved in 150 million pound ($256.7 million) takeover talks with a media-based company, the Mail On Sunday has said.

Italy's soccer players have voted not to strike in protest at media speculation that their sport is rife with drug-taking.

The head of the Italian Olympic Committee's anti-doping panel has resigned and the organisation's former president Mario Pescante has been placed under investigation as Italy's soccer-doping scandal widened.

Stock prices of both News Corp. and CBS Corp. fell Tuesday as expectations grew that stock offerings planned by offshoots of both companies are likely to be postponed.

Xerox is to be an official sponsor of Rugby World Cup 1999 to be hosted by Welsh Rugby Union.

Twelve of Europe's top clubs have asked UEFA for closer co-operation in the organisation of the European Champions' League and insisted on having more input in financial matters.

The English Cricket Board is expected to announce that home Test matches will be screened by Channel 4 when its current agreement with the BBC ends in 2000.

Soccer matches should be played in three periods instead of two halves to make them more attractive for television, Bayern Munich vice-president Karl-Heinz Rummenigge suggested on Friday.

The San Francisco 49ers have quashed rumors that Dwight Clark, the club's executive vice president, is about join friend and former 49ers president Carmen Policy to help assemble the new Cleveland Browns.

With a decision possible before the end of the day, Mike Tyson again goes before Nevada boxing authorities to try to convince a majority of the five-member state athletic commission that he deserves a chance to fight again.

NFL International has signed a two-year agreement with Coors for the sponsorship of NFL activities in the United Kingdom.

The public prosecutor in Rotterdam is to investigate the city's largest soccer club Feyenoord on suspicion of financial impropriety in the 1990s.

Television networks paid more than ever to broadcast National Football League games but the ratings have not lived up to expectations, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

Europe's leading soccer leagues have taken on world governing body FIFA about releasing players for the controversial Confederations' Cup in January.