he 2014 Brazil World Cup is set to be the most profitable tournament ever for Fifa.

World football’s governing body expects to generate an income of $3.8bn for the 2011-2014 period – of which more than 95 per cent will come from the World Cup in Brazil.

The UK Government is drawing up radical proposals that would give football fans first option to buy their clubs if they are put up for sale.

The ideas, due to be included in the Labour manifesto, would also require clubs to hand over a stake of up to 25 per cent to supporters groups.

In the week that the sale of TV rights for international Premier League hit a new record reaching 1,556 million Euros, here is the status and values of the collective sale of television rights in the major European leagues.

Highly respected magazine France Football has released its annual list of the highest earners in world football on wages alone.

Following a scintillating week, where he has scored eight goals in three games, few will begrudge Lionel Messi for earning 33 million euros a year from Barcelona and coming top of the list.

On the night of the October 21st the Real Madrid played Champions League match against AC Milan.
Heineken convinced several university professors, girlfriends, and several bosses to convince their students, boyfriends and employees to go to a concert on that night. All of them couldn’t say no and had to go to the classical concert. But…

Can real value ever be achieved from an investment in brand marketing?

To get to an answer, we first have to define our terms. Brand marketing is the activity that utilises all of the properties associated with an organisation’s identity.

The Manchester United Supporters Trust, the voluntary organisation looking to force a change of ownership at the Premier League club, is considering taking out press ads as it looks to increase membership and donations.

Arsenal.com has been named Best Sports Website at the 2009 UK Website of the Year awards. The Gunners’ official club website received the highest average rating for content, design and navigation in the sports category after more than 850,000 votes were cast as UK web users selected their favourite websites in 22 categories.

Matthew Glendinning reports on the social media explosion and the marketing implications for professional football.

Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, it’s clear that social media is no longer just for kids. These web-based platforms, which have hundreds of millions of subscribers, have grown-up applications for any number of businesses, not least the soccer sector. And unlike every other arm of the football business from club websites to CRM, integration with social media costs next to nothing.

Assuming that clubs and leagues integrate their social media activities with their overall CRM strategies it could not be long before football clubs – instead of being late adopters of CRM – stand out as thought leaders.

Below is an attempt to outline the proclaimed sports industry specific factors that can work as accelerators for rapid adoption of social media.