- Switzerland Euro 2021 Kitsempty Spaces The Blog 2017
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SWITZERLAND EURO 2021 KITS. 0 Comments Read Now. WALES EURO 2020 KITS. 0 Comments Read Now. The Swiss Federal Council is tightening partial lockdown from 18th January to 28th February: compulsory working from home, restrictions on private meetings and public gatherings, shops closed.
Other plotlines that may or may not come to define the sports industry... esports going unrecognised by the IOC.
Europe’s widespread return to lockdown will prompt a gloomier outlook about the course of the Covid-19 pandemic over the next few months. Vaccines, treatments and rapid testing could make medium to long-term prospects a little brighter but there is already a sense of expectations being readjusted for 2021.
The headline impact there could be on the continent’s biggest event of next year, which was originally meant to be its biggest event of this year. The Uefa Euro 2020 soccer tournament, postponed for 12 months to next June and July, is still officially scheduled to take place across 12 host cities but there are already reports that its pan-continental model will shrink.
According to the Daily Mail, Uefa is set to concentrate matches in three or four host countries, with priority given to those nations who can safely accommodate some fans and sponsors by the middle of next year. The Mirror has since suggested that a one-nation concept is also a possibility, with 2018 Fifa World Cup host Russia in the frame.
That could mean more games at the biggest venues, such as Munich’s Allianz Arena and the planned scene of the semi-finals and final, London’s Wembley Stadium. But it could mean those venues are not used at all. Beyond a handful of late summer test events, the UK has yet to allow any fans back into venues and, as England begins a new four-week lockdown from 5th November, plans to reintroduce them are in the long grass until the early spring. In Germany, where more limited lockdown measures come into effect this week, there is now also a temporary halt on reopening venues.
Central Europe could end up as the hub for the competition and the British government, specifically, has admitted it cannot give firm guarantees as yet. Nonetheless, the Mail also notes that England’s Football Association (FA) remains confident Wembley will still play its part.
Esports intrigue
The future place of esports within the organised sporting landscape has become a little harder to discern with the news – via Inside The Games – that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not intend to recognise a dedicated federation for competitive gaming.
The IOC’s Esports and Liason Group (ELG) is said to have written to all summer and winter sports bodies informing them of that conclusion. Those organisations have also been advised not to join the Singapore-based Global Esports Federation (GEF), which was created by Chinese digital media giant Tencent last year. The global governing bodies for tennis, archery, canoeing, karate, modern pentathlon and surfing are among those to have signed agreements with the GEF, along with the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) and Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF).
A different body, the International eSports Federation (IeSF), was established in South Korea in 2008 with the eventual ambition of having esports recognised as an Olympic discipline.
For now, the IOC wants to work directly with mainstream esports organisations as it seeks to further its understanding of the space, and help sports federations do the same. The ELG will present a report on esports at the Olympic Summit in Lausanne, Switzerland on 12th December.
Electronic arts
Meanwhile, brace yourselves for another volley of general interest media features asking ‘what is esports, really?’ as BuzzFeed Studios prepares its debut feature film. 1UP is a comedy set in the world of competitive US college video games and promises to slot into the tried and true sports movie template.
Paris Berelc will star as a rising gaming talent who quits her all-male team due to rampant sexism, and must assemble her own all-female outfit – with some help from a scandal-hit, exiled coach, played by Oscar nominee Ellen Page – in order to keep her scholarship. Production starts this month in Toronto, Canada.
Digital furs
Telecommunications brand Vodafone has unveiled a new mobile app to mark its sponsorship of rugby union’s British and Irish Lions, who will tour South Africa in 2021. The activation underlines the growing importance of digital assets, with fans set to be able to generate their own fully animated, personalised shareable virtual avatars in a feature boasting the same technology as that used in games like Fortnite and Fifa.
These ‘digital Lions’ are being pitched as the centre of the digital experience for Lions fans, alongside more conventional elements like a team selector and in-game statistics.
Pay your money, take your choice
The political activism of American sports stars may have got under the varnished skin of President Donald Trump in recent years – even when that action has not carried direct partisan connotations – but as election day approached, it was clear that the ownership class was still mostly lining Republican pockets.
A study of Federal Election Commission databases by ESPN and FiveThirtyEight has shown that the owners of US major league teams continue to contribute more readily to Republican campaigns than Democratic ones. Donation records involving 160 owners and commissioners across Major League Baseball (MLB), Nascar, the National Basketball Association (NBA), the Women's NBA (WNBA), the National Football League (NFL), and the National Hockey League (NHL) – albeit with some information only available up to 30th June – found that just over US$10 million had been pledged to Republicans in the 2020 cycle, while US$1.87 million had gone to Democrats.
Overall contributions by owners in each of those leagues trend Republican – as they did in 2016 and in the 2018 midterms – although that is partly skewed by San Francisco Giants owner Charles Johnson, who has given US$10.995 million to the GOP in the past four years. In the WNBA, Republican senator Kelly Loeffler, who has spent much of 2020 in a running spat with her Atlanta Dream players, accounts for 65 per cent of all donations to her party.
Leading Democratic donors include the Baltimore Orioles’ Peter Angelos, who has given the party over US$2 million since 2016, and the Chicago Cubs’ Laura Ricketts, who has contributed more just over US$1.7 million.
Several owners, of course, have made contributions to bipartisan causes or paid at least nominal sums to both sides.
A short conversation, a long time coming
5th July 2012: ‘Secondly, OJSC MegaFon (Russia) received a cold call letter from Mr Gazidis requesting a meeting to discuss a possible international partnership deal including shirt sponsorship. MegaFon is one of the three largest mobile phone companies in Russia and also happens to be over 50 per cent owned by Alisher Usmanov. Is this really the level of professionalism that is being applied to securing long-term commercial contracts?’
Alisher Usmanov and Farhad Moshiri take exception to Arsenal’s sponsorship sales techniques, in a letter written when they held a 30 per cent stake in the Premier League soccer club.
Switzerland Euro 2021 Kitsempty Spaces The Blog 2017
28th October 2020: MegaFon branding to appear on the front of Everton’s shirts in the Women’s Super League as part of a wider partnership signed by Usmanov and Moshiri’s USM Holdings in January.
Other aspects of that partnership include a UK£30 million first option on the naming rights to the new home of Everton’s Premier League side, in which Moshiri is now the majority shareholder.
Depreciating Russian assets
In case you missed it, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled in late October that it would strip the Russian biathlete Evgeny Ustyugov of the golds he won at the Vancouver 2010 and Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, upholding an earlier decision by the International Biathlon Union (IBU).
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The 35-year-old has become the umpteenth Russian athlete – SportsPro has done the maths, clearly – to be retroactively disqualified since 2016’s McLaren Report exposed a state-backed doping conspiracy for the country’s home Games. But Ustyugov’s elimination does herald a new milestone: it puts Norway top of the Sochi medal table.
All that effort, sort of… What did it really accomplish?
IPC refugee team
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) expects to send a team of up to six refugee athletes to the rescheduled Tokyo 2020 next year. The chef de mission will be London 2012 Paralympian Ileana Rodriguez of the US, a Cuban-born former refugee. She will help the IPC choose para-athletes from a pool of competitors who have confirmed refugee status in accordance with international law.
It's the little things
Golfers taking part in two European Tour events in Cyprus have been encouraged by officials to use environmentally-friendly tees supplied by Oceantee. Made from bamboo, the sustainable tees are part of the brand's drive to improve a sport where environmental issues are not always top of the agenda.
From the brink to the rim
“I think it was close to midnight when [Chris Paul], calls with LeBron, Carmelo [Anthony], I think Russ Westbrook was on the phone, and the conversation we had was along the lines LeBron spoke about.
“Protest is useful in terms of raising awareness, but given the power that the NBA players had, my suggestion was that we use that platform to see if you can start asking for some specifics. This isn't something that's just a one-off. That's sadly what we've seen, as it happens again and again.
“So, one of the suggestions I had for the players was: Is it possible for you guys to set up an office that allows you, on an ongoing basis, to take best practices that are going to start making incidents like that less likely?”
Former US president Barack Obama, appearing on HBO talk show The Shop, recalls intense conversations with the National Basketball Players Association as they considered abandoning the season after the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin in August.