United Kingdom

Steve Martin, head of M&C Saatchi Sponsorship and Julian Hough, Group development officer of fast-rising marketing services group Engine, are among the latest industry leaders to join the speaker line-up for the SportBusiness International Sports Media Summit in London on March 14.

Spanish banking giant Santander is being tipped to emerge as the new title rights holder of the British Formula One Grand Prix.

The English Football Association (FA) has issued an invitation to tender for the audio-visual rights of the FA Cup and England home matches.

Northern Ireland soccer matches may be switched from Windsor Park, Belfast, unless £325,000 can be found to repair the storm damaged roof of the North Stand.

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) agreed a deal with Friends Provident, the FTSE100 life assurance and pensions company, to become the new title sponsor of the domestic One-Day Trophy, to be known as the Friends Provident Trophy.

Aviva, the savings, investments and insurance group, appointed Fast Track’s Consulting division to carry out a review of the group’s global approach to commercial sponsorship, with the project initially planned to run through 2007.

The Deloitte Football Money League shows the total revenue of the world’s Top 20 clubs is now over €3.3 billion with Real Madrid ahead of the competition with total revenue of £202 million (€ 292 million).

Sir Craig Reedie OBE is to open the 2007 UK Trade and Investment Global Sport conference www.gsc2007.com. He is set to discus the IOC’s work in encouraging effective partnerships as a core element of a successful games bid.

US businessmen George Gillett Jr and Tom Hicks will become co-chairmen of English Premier League club Liverpool after completing a deal to take ownership of the club beating off competition from Dubai International Capital.

The Sport Industry Group announced that Sepp Blatter will be the subject of the Sport Industry Interview 2007 - the first such dialogue of its kind that the FIFA President has undertaken in the UK.

Aston Villa Football Club manager Martin O’Neill visited The Aston Park Sports Pitch in Aston today, for the official opening of the completed site on behalf of Barclays Spaces for Sports.

SportBusiness is delighted to welcome ArkSports, the specialist sports consultancy and publisher, to the group.

John McBeth, president of the Scottish Football Association will replace countryman David Will as the UK representative at FIFA’s top table.

The organisers of the 2012 Olympics in London announced two new top-tier sponsorship opportunities for major UK firms who want to back the games.

Transfer spending by Premier League clubs during last month’s transfer window was over £60 million, not quite reaching the record level of January 2006 (£70m), but ahead of spending levels in each of the previous transfer windows according to analysis by Deloitte.

Secondary ticketing company viagogo signed up its first ever partnerships in rugby, with landmark deals with Leicester Tigers and London Wasps rugby clubs.