Nordics

International Olympic Committee (IOC) officials have accused the United States of covering up doping cases among U.S. athletes for more than a decade.

The European Commission has sought to dismiss any idea the EU might give a blanket exemption to the collective selling of sports broadcasting rights, a practice seen as an illegal cartel.

Tele-Cine, the builders of secure TV and internet production facilities, has signed a long-term contract to provide transmission services for the digital TV channel gobarkingmad - a live, 24-hour greyhound racing channel where punters can see a race every five to eight minutes.

Chelsea's outspoken chairman Ken Bates called on UEFA and FIFA to end "meaningless matches" at both national and club level by segregating teams from smaller countries into pre-qualifying competitions.

Austrian and Swiss soccer officials will meet in Bern on March 9 to discuss a possible joint bid to host the 2008 European Championships, officials said on Tuesday.

VTV, recently-acquired by UK-based The Television Corporation and now part of Sunset+Vine, has won a new four year contract to produce and distribute coverage of English badminton until 2005.

Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland have agreed to submit a joint application to host the European soccer championship finals in 2008.

Swedish Minister of Sports, Lars Enqvist, has made an energetic start at his new role. Along with Olof Stenhammar, former campaign-leader for Stockholm's 2004 bid for the Summer Olympics, Engqvist has presented a plan to make Sweden an Olympic force.

Russia may file an official complaint against a Swedish company that supplied radioactive sand for a court being laid for a Davis Cup quarter-final.

Nordic insurance company "if?" is to replace Scania as title sponsor of the Swedish tennis tournament the Stockholm Open.

APTN has chosen Stockholm-based Kamera Interactives? ?KameraOne? service for the online distribution of some of its sports and news video content across Europe.

The Extreme Sports Channel has extended it reach to include the city of Louvain in Belgium.

Athletics chiefs have revamped their fixture list for next season in a bid to make Wednesday nights a focal point for top-class track and field.

Euro 2000 proved a major hit with TV audiences across the continent, according to the latest figures released by Mediametrie.

Greece rejected claims by soccer's world governing body FIFA that the government was meddling in Greek soccer, risking a ban from international competition.

A joint four nation Nordic bid to host the European Championship finals of 2008 is to be considered, a spokesman for the Danish soccer federation has said.