New Zealand

Preparations for the Rugby League World Cup have been rocked by the threat of a players? boycott based on a labour dispute in New Zealand.

The naming rights to Sydney?s Olympic stadium have been sold to the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ).

South Africa has said it would investigate a controversial vote by soccer's world governing body FIFA which denied Africa its best chance yet to host the World Cup.

The editor of cricket bible Wisden, Matthew Engel, has announced he is quitting the job at the cricket almanack for at least a year because he was tired of having to write about England's "relentless failures".

Sydney is to host the annual rugby union competition the Bledisloe Cup.

The record number of imported horses contesting Tuesday's A$2.5 million (US$1.55 million) Australian Melbourne Cup has triggered a war of words between the Cup's organisers and some of the country's most successful trainers.

Membership sales for a new stadium in Wellington, New Zealand have passed the halfway mark - six months before construction of the $121 million complex is completed.

Attheraces, the new name for the Go Racing consortium backed by Arena Leisure, BSkyB and Carlton Communications, has appointed three additional members of the senior management team to supplement last month?s recruitment of marketing director Gavin Bisdee.

The Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitas has failed to persuade Olympic shooting champion Michael Diamond to surrender his Australian citizenship for a Greek one in time for the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004.

New Zealand umpiring officials say they do not believe allegations that match-fixing occurred during a recent Pakistan cricket tour of New Zealand.

The International Cricket Council has approved South Africa?s proposals for the format of the 2003 World Cup.

World rugby union chiefs have said they had no contingency plans to stage the 2003 World Cup outside Australia and New Zealand, the two countries due to co-host the event.

England's top rugby union players, who have gone on strike over pay, are among the best paid in the world despite financial problems in the domestic game.

Some of cricket's leading figures were anxiously awaiting news of their fate after the International Cricket Council (ICC) began its executive board meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, on Monday.

The New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRFU) has announced that the All Blacks will play a Pacific rim Barbarians side in Tokyo in November.

The decision to abstain from the last round of voting in the 2006 World Cup decision has left Charles Dempsey of New Zealand facing a backlash both at home and abroad ? see SportBusiness.com `FEATURES? section for the full story of how one man changed the destiny of soccer?s biggest prize.