Stadia

Brazil's soccer chiefs have leapt to the defence of their bid for the 2006 World Cup finals after Pele said the campaign was a waste of time.

Australia will host three-test series against Pakistan and India over the summer but Melbourne could miss out as a venue because of a dispute involving the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Overjoyed Bangladeshis, whose cricket team won its first victory at the century's last Cricket World Cup in England on Monday, will soon have a stadium exclusively for cricket, according to media reports.

The National Football League has said it is comfortable with the number of premium seats sold to date for the proposed new Boston stadium in Foxborough, but people involved in the project said the facility would have fewer corporate suites than originally publicized.

NFL owners have voted heavily in favour to loan up to half of private funding to teams in major markets for the building of stadiums.

With construction of St. Paul's partially bond-financed hockey arena now underway, Mayor Norm Coleman is turning his sights to crafting a finance package and building public support for a new stadium for baseball's Minnesota Twins, who currently play in Minneapolis.

Quepasa!com will sponsor Fox Sports World Espanol's network coverage of the Copa America '99 which begins on June 29.

Pele has renewed his attack on Brazil's 2006 World Cup bid as he claimed the president of the country's football federation was talking nonsense.

Brisbane is in line to host a Davis cup tie on 24-26 September 1999.

Sydney Olympic organisers have said they are reinstating the cycling road race course to the city's oceanside eastern suburbs, but would re-route it to avoid cutting off Rupert Murdoch's Fox studios.

TodaysSports.com has become one of the top 10 sports sites on the Web in terms of reach since it began operating two months ago.

Rookie professional Geoff Ogilvy, inspired by a golf lesson over the Internet with his coach in Australia, fired an eight-under-par 64 to share the first round lead in the English Open.

England are to play Belgium in a friendly at Sunderland's Stadium of Light on Sunday 10 October.

Brazilian politicians have announced a $34 million refurbishment for the world famous Maracana stadium.

Decathlon, the French sporting goods retailer, takes a gamble this week by opening the UK's largest sports store when the sector is reeling from depressed trading and heavy discounting.

Hewlett-Packard Company, EDS and the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup have teamed up to put out a daily news Web-site.

Prize money for next month's British Open golf tournament at Carnoustie will exceed #2 million ($3.2 million) for the first time.

ISM Holding Corp, owners of ISM Marketing and ISM Motorsports, is to launch an interactive sports betting and gaming site, the first of several interactive web sites to be owned by the company.