Japan

Germany's main state television channels ARD and ZDF said they had pulled out of talks with media group Kirch over the broadcasting rights for the next two soccer World Cups.

Less than three weeks before tickets for the 2002 World Cup go on sale, Japan's organisers were locked in a dispute with co-host South Korea over whose name appears first.

Beijing plans to spend 100 billion yuan ($12.08 billion) cleaning up its heavily polluted air to improve its bid to host the 2008 Olympics, a government minister said on Friday.

China is contemplating throwing Tiananmen Square - mostly known to the outside world for the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators - into its 2008 Olympic bid as the venue for beach volleyball.

Toronto's bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games picked up momentum this week with a timely convergence of enthusiastic public support and a C$1.5-billion ($1 billion) pledge by government to redevelop Toronto's waterfront - the centrepiece of Toronto's Olympic vision.

?The X Games'' is fulfilling the two mandates that prompted ESPN to create them five years ago, according to Variety magazine.

A new race in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex as well as first-time events in England, Germany and Mexico highlight the record 22-race FedEx Championship Series schedule for the 2001 season.

Japan welcomed FIFA's decision to bring forward the start of the 2002 World Cup by one day and said it would not affect the country's preparations to co-host the event.

Manchester United could be about to hit the big screen after it was revealed movie star Mel Gibson?s film company Icon Productions is to make a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the club.

The International Olympic Committee has moved quickly to snuff out a new corruption row after a U.S. newspaper said a Japanese IOC member had given colleagues and their wives expensive necklaces 10 years ago.

It has been confirmed that an Asian boycott of the 2002 World Cup has been averted when FIFA president Sepp Blatter and Asian confederation president Sultan Ahmad Shah reached an agreement on the allocation of teams for the finals.

South Korea's top football representative has said he would like to see North and South Korea field a united team for the 2002 World Cup.

Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) have announced an 87% increase in revenue to $10 million for the first quarter of 1998.

International athletics chief Primo Nebiolo has said he no longer fears the stadium for next year's world championships will not be ready on time.

The largestever J-League soccer crowd turned out on Sunday night to watch J-West beat J-East 3-1 in the mid-season All-Star game.

China's soccer champions are seeking a new corporate sponsor because Dalian Wanda Group Co plans to withdraw support before the end of 1998, officials said on Wednesday.