Eastern Europe

The Austrian town of Klagenfurt kicked off the final day's campaigning for the right to host the 2006 Winter Games, wheeling out 1976 Olympic downhill champion Franz Klammer to try to win over the International Olympic Committee.

Manchester United, the world?s best supported club team, will be playing for big bucks in Wednesday?s Uefa Champions? League.

The Polish Football Association (PZPN) has said that FIFA intervention had failed to resolve a dispute with the government which could see Poland barred from international competition.

Satellite TV interests in Poland are expected to merge in order to accelerate profitability in eastern Europe's strongest television market.

The BBC is understood to have paid around #3m ($4.3m) for exclusive live TV and radio rights to England's World Cup soccer qualifier against Greece in June.

NHL International, in conjunction with ESPN International, will distribute the 2000 NHL

UFA SPORTS has extended its existing contract with the Croatian Football Association until the year 2008.

European soccer chief Lennart Johansson has acknowledged that it would take some time before Bosnia's divided communities came together in sport following the 1992-1995 ethnic war.

Norwegian billionaire Kjell Inge Roekke will lay out almost 500,000 crowns ($66,390) to make sure his hometown soccer team Molde get plenty of support for a match against Oslo's Valerenga this weekend.

Romania on Friday extended a ban on referee Florin Chivulete after he was accused of offering women to match officials, ruling him out of domestic as well as international soccer.

Romania's sports ministry (MTS) has launched an official investigation into alleged financial irregularities at the Romanian Gymnastics Federation, a ministry spokesman has said.

British investment group ENIC has said it has won court clearance for AEK Athens and Slavia Prague to play in the UEFA Cup next season.

Finnish ice hockey officials have agreed to host the 2003 world ice hockey championship, swapping the 2004 tournament with the Czech Republic who need more time to finish their facilities.

Olympic organisers were more confident on Wednesday of being able to prepare a soccer pitch playing surface at Canberra in time for next month's Games, averting the need to move matches away from the federal capital.

Hungary hopes to score a first on the Internet by broadcasting a soccer game live on the web later this month, a local sports newspaper reported.

A group of private investors is set to take a 90 percent stake in Hungarian first division Ujpest in a deal worth 150 million forints ($630,500) - just a week before the new soccer season begins.