France

The race to host the 2018 Winter Olympics has entered the final straight after all three candidate cities delivered their bid books to the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Scotland is bidding to host the opening stage of cycling's Tour de France in 2017.

French businessman Charles Beigbeder has been installed as the new chief executive of the team attempting to bring the 2018 Winter Olympics to Annecy in France.

Edgar Grospiron has resigned as the chief executive of Annecy’s bid to stage the 2018 Winter Olympic Games.

The English Premier League is this season's leader in shirt sponsorship revenue amongst the top six European leagues. The EPL's €128 million revenue leapfrogged the German Bundesliga with a €45 million increase.

Digital sport specialist PERFORM yesterday announced it will offer its sports news service, OMNISPORT, in five new languages. All video content, from January next year, will be available in Arabic, French, Italian, German and Spanish.

Annecy’s bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympic Games yesterday unveiled its “new and highly compact” bid plan at a press conference in Paris. The plan, in conjunction with the French Ski Federation, has competition venues held around two main bases, Annecy and Chamonix Mont-Blanc.

Etienne Thobois, chief executive of the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France, is to speak at this year’s Rugby Expo conference and exhibition at the RHS Lawrence Hall, Westminster.

Somfy, the French company that offers automatic solutions for the home, has extended its Olympic involvement in France by signing a partnership deal with the French National Olympic Committee (NOC) in addition to its agreement with the Annecy bid for the 2018 Winter Games.

Gerard Lopez, owner of Formula One’s Renault F1 Team, said securing sponsorship deals is more important than the possible signing of driver Kimi Raikkonen for the 2011 season.

Swedish International Olympic Committee (IOC) member Gunilla Lindberg is to chair an 11-member commission to evaluate the three candidate cities for the 2018 Winter Olympics: Munich (Germany), Annecy (France) and PyeongChang (South Korea).

UEFA president Michel Platini has welcomed the decrease in player spending in Europe during the past transfer window. According to a study by Barcelona-based marketing company Prime Time Sport, the amount spent by clubs in the top five European leagues fell 29 per cent to €1.32 billion.

Net sales at Lagardère Unlimited, the French media group division that owns the Sportfive, World Sport Group (WSG) and IEC in Sports agencies, fell 33.8 per cent for the first six months of 2010, from €261 million to €174 million.

French Football Federation president Jean-Pierre Escalettes resigned yesterday following the national team’s disappointing campaign at this year’s World Cup in South Africa.

Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong has announced he will make his final appearance in the Tour de France, cycling’s biggest event, next month.

A crowd of 30,000 attended a day of celebrations in Annecy on Wednesday to celebrate the French city being chosen as one of the candidates to host the 2018 Winter Olympics.