Michael Owen gets behind BT’s Sky Sports ad campaign

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Micheal Owenis one of several current English Premier League players that BT will be using to promote their new BT Vision Sky Sports packages.

From 1st July 2010, BT will begin to promote the BT Vision’s Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2 packages that will be available from August 1 2010 – spending more than £30m on TV, radio, press, outdoor and Digital Media promotion.

Owne will be on the television ad, alongside current footballers such  Shay Given, Gareth Bale and Wes Brown.  Also feautred will be the BT advert regular Adam, who is played by Kris Marshall.

The ad follows Adam from his flat, down the lift and into the carpark as the sound of a football crowd gets louder and louder. He heads toward a square of bright light ahead and as he keeps walking toward the light, he finds himself in a football tunnel, joined by Michael Owen, Shay Given, Gareth Bale and Wes Brown lining up to go out on the pitch. The ad culminates with Adam running out on to the pitch.

Entry prices for the new Sky Sports service will be as low as £6.99, with BT hoping to capture a slice of the market for TV football viewing with either new viewers or switching viewers put off by the high prices with Sky.

Free Souvenir England Programmes with the Guardian

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The Guardian are offering free souvenir programmes with every England game. Here is there latest World Cup video.

You can also follow the Guardians’s Football World Cup coverage at www.guardian.co.uk/football/worldcup2010 or www.facebook.com/guardianfootball Follow on Twitter @gdnworldcup.

More than a quarter of billion daily page views on FIFA’s World Cup website

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FIFA has announced that on 15 June 265 million pages were accessed on its FIFA.com website  by nearly 10 million visitors, when Brazil beat North Korea in their opening game. This builds on the total of 1.6 billion pages accessed by nearly 53 million individuals on FIFA.com in the first two weeks of June – a record in itself.

By comparison, a total of 48 million unique users visited FIFA.com over the entire four weeks of the 2006 World Cup. The previous daily record was set on 22 June 2006 when tournament winners Italy played the Czech Republic and generated 250 million views.

The free FIFA.com Club now welcomes over 4 million registered users from around the world, 14% of them women,  who interact, comment and win prizes, while more than 300 million Virtual Panini stickers have been ‘glued’ into place and 633,000 fans have tested their knowledge with the site’s Trivia game.

Italy’s captain Fabio Cannavaro has proved a durable idol: the most popular photo on the site remains the shot of him triumphantly holding aloft the World Cup Trophy in 2006.

More than a quarter of billion daily page views on FIFA's World Cup website

Virtual Penalty Shoot out – take part to win amazing sports prize and also to help AIDS in Africa

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If you could attend any sporting event in the world, which would you choose? Who would you take? All questions for anyone who plays to win the ultimate sports prize, the Yahoo! Sports Pass. The prize will give one lucky winner two tickets to 16 of the world’s greatest sporting events, four events per year for four years. In addition to allowing the winner to pick the events of their choice, the Yahoo! Sports Pass also includes travel and accommodation for each event.

To win the Sports Pass prize, play Yahoo! Penalty Shootout, an online game that allows you to face off against friends, other fans and rivals in a virtual penalty kick competition. Fans in more than 16 countries will be able to play the game at http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/football/world-cup/penalty-shootout/ for a chance to win the Yahoo! Sports Pass.

The Penalty Shootout contestants with the two highest scores in the world at the end of the online competition will be flown to Brazil to compete in a real live penalty shootout featuring famous England and Arsenal goalkeeper David Seaman. The winner with the highest number of kicks against Seaman will be awarded the Yahoo! Sports Pass.

“The penalty shootout is always the most intense, highly charged aspect of any football competition,” said Andrew Cocker, Yahoo!’s UK Head of Marketing. “For the winners of the Yahoo! Penalty Shootout promotion, the stakes could not be higher – a prize that any sports fan would love – tickets to 16 of the biggest sporting events in the world. The final challenge is to beat David Seaman: a big test for the ultimate sports prize.”

In addition to trying to win the ultimate sports prize, fans that play Yahoo! Penalty Shootout for (RED) on the first day of the World Cup will help eliminate HIV/AIDS in Africa.  For every goal scored on June 11, Yahoo! will contribute USD $1, up to USD $100,000, to the Global Fund, the recipient of (RED) monies. Since 2006 (RED) has been engaging business and consumers to help eliminate AIDS in Africa and to date (RED) partners and events have generated $150 million for the Global Fund. For more info about (RED) visit www.joinred.com

UEFA brings in common sense finance rules

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UEFA brings in common sense finance rules Michel Platini the UEFA president said that the approval last week of new financial play fair rules is the start of a vital journey for football in Europe that will lead to the stabilization of economic common sense.

The approval of the rules means that clubs that want to compete in the Europa League or Champions League will need to break even during each season in order to be eligible.  Additionally, club owners will only be able to invest £38m for the first three seasons after the regulations start in the 2012 and 2013 football season.

The aim of the new legislation is to level the playing field, but the biggest clubs in England may feel the impact deeply with super rich owners of clubs such as the Manchester City and Chelsea unable to contribute millions of pounds in order to purchase star players and cancel out losses.

During this time, the Premier League, which has turned away from any suggestion that clubs should have to pass through tighter regulation, is also introducing a new set of financial rules.

Next week the Premier League will meet in order to stamp a new set of laws that will hopefully prevent another collapse like what happened in Portsmouth.

Included in the new financial laws are measures that will permit the Premier League to withhold TV rights payments and or to intervene if it is not happy with the club’s financial direction which includes stopping a takeover, access to details of all loan deals, and the ability to assess the suitability of any potential new owner of a club.