TOP 100 SPORT SITES
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| Tottenham Hotspur eye Craig Bellamy Speculation about the future of Craig Bellamy, the Manchester City and Wales striker, has increased since the departure of Mark Hughes as manager and Harry Redknapp, the Tottenham Hotspur manager, has added to it by refusing to rule out a move for the player. “He is a winner, isn’t he?” Redknapp said. “He can be a bit of a nuisance, but he’s a nuisance when you play against him.” feeds.timesonline.co.uk |
Ecclestone linked to Saab rescue bid Formula One boss teams up with Luxembourg investment firm to save Swedish carmakerThe billionaire Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone has teamed up with a Luxembourg investment firm to launch an eleventh-hour rescue attempt for Saab, the troubled 62-year-old Swedish carmaker which is being wound down by its American owner, General Motors, after eight successive years of losses.Just minutes before a GM deadline of 10pm yesterday for offers, Luxembourg-based Genii Capital announced it was interested in making an offer with Ecclestone for a majority stake in Saab. Other possible bidders include a Dutch high-end sports carmaker, Spyker Cars.Genii said it believes Saab has "tremendous brand value in a number of key automotive markets, as well as an innovative image". The privately held firm said that with an "adequate and short time frame" for a bid, it would "aggressively work towards a successful closing of the transaction with all the relevant stakeholders of the company".The unexpected new proposal is likely to give a sliver of hope to Saab's 3,400 employees, most of whom are based in south-western Sweden. In Britain, some 3,000 people work at 87 Saab-franchised car dealerships.Genii already has links to the motor industry and to Ecclestone's Formula One sporting empire. The investment firm last month bought a majority stake in Renault's Formula One team.The extent of Ecclestone's involvement in Genii's offer for Saab was not disclosed, but the motor racing supremo is very wealthy – Forbes magazine estimated his family's net worth at $3.7bn (ÂŁ2.3bn).Saab's future has been hanging by a thread since early 2008, when GM announced that it wanted to sell the brand. Initial talks with potential buyers proved unsuccessful and the American company last month said it had decided to shut down the firm, causing public and political dismay in Sweden.In a statement yesterday, the Detroit-based company said: "GM continues to receive and evaluate proposals for Saab. We consider any discussions to be confidential and we won't discuss any details until a decision has been reached."On Wednesday, GM's chairman, Ed Whitacre, dampened expectations of a rescue, saying that a sale of Saab was "unlikely" because nobody had come up with adequate financing for a deal: "It's real easy – show up with the money and you can have it."A small group of Saab enthusiasts held a rally outside GM's headquarters on Tuesday, parking their cars outside the company's downtown office block and waving "Save Saab" signs.SaabGeneral MotorsBernie EcclestoneSwedenUnemployment and employment statisticsFormula OneAndrew Clarkguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Papa John’s becomes Super Bowl sponsor Papa John’s International Inc. has signed an agreement with the National Football League to become the Official Pizza Sponsor of the NFL and Super Bowl XLIV. (PZZA) feeds.bizjournals.com |
Domnina-Shabalin lead after original dance TALLINN, Estonia (AP) -- Ice dancers Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin held their lead at the European Figure Skating Championships with an original dance to Australian aboriginal music that pushed the boundaries of the discipline.... hosted.ap.org |
Another tale of woe from the Tiger empire The portents are not good for Tiger Woods's golf course design businessFor all that was written about the hypocrisy of Tiger Woods, who "sold" himself as a family man while running a private life that would have made Caligula blush, the fact is there was only one sponsorship deal in which he explicitly used his family as a selling point and that was the deal he had with a golf course community in South Carolina called The Cliffs.It was to be the first Woods' first golf course "design" in the US. "With a wife and two kids, your perspective on life changes. I want to have my kids experience something like this. I want to be able to bring them up here and feel safe, feel secure and enjoy running the trails and being a part of nature like this. Because your priorities start changing and evolving once you have family, and I want to be able to come up here as often as I can,'' Woods said in a promotional video for the project, for which he was reportedly being paid $15m (plus royalties on the sale of the real estate attached to the golf course, presumably). Nice work if you can get it, although, according to Golfweek magazine, Woods won't be getting much of it - the work, that is - in the foreseeable future.(Club) officials didn't respond to repeated interview requests from Golfweek, but all indications are that the project has stalled. Executives at The Cliffs Communities, which owns the development, haven't announced how, or if, they'll change their marketing strategy. But any route they take could be challenging, considering what has been an almost singular reliance on Woods.Indeed, the day The Cliffs Communities unveiled the project more than two years ago, the company bused in hundreds of its employees to Furman University in Greenville, S.C., for a private motivational session led by Woods. Later that morning, Woods met the media and shared the dais with Jim Anthony, founder and president of The Cliffs Communities. Together, they touted plans for the family-oriented golf and recreational community on 3,200 acres. Later in the week, full-page color ads for High Carolina started running in The Wall Street Journal – at a cost of $70,800 apiece. More recent ads, since discontinued, featured the distinct profile of Woods casting a large shadow across a mountainous site.Woods has two golf course "design" projects in the pipeline - one in Mexico, which has been stalled because of difficulties with environmental permits, and the other in Dubai, which has stalled because of difficulties in finding anyone daft enough to invest money in that benighted desert building site. Credit to Golfweek, it did manage to track down Bryon Bell, who is described as president of Tiger Woods Design (an all-encompassing title that apparently also covers taking care of the travel needs of his boss' friends) , and asked him if Woods planned to adjust (presumably they meant reduce) his fees. His only comment: "We support Tiger's decision to focus on personal healing and remain confident in his dedication to golf course design."On a wider note, is it too much to hope that the troubles besetting these Woods' golf courses might cause a re-evaluation of the widespread practise in which leading players are paid enormous fees to "design" golf courses when, in fact, the closest they come to "designing" them is visiting the site a few times for photo opportunities, leaving the actual design work to a team of largely uninspired hacks? The upshot is a world covered in golf courses that are expensive to play (because the owner has to claw back the players' "design" fee somehow) and all look the same.There are plenty of young, enthusiastic and knowledgeable - not to mention old, experienced and knowledgeable - golf course designers who tho are desperate for work these days. Not only would they be cheaper, they would do a far better job.Tiger WoodsGolfLawrence Doneganguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |