Charles Sale- Winter wonderland at Wembley as FA get skates on in dash for cash
10 Oct 2009 - 00:02:14
Wembley will be the latest venue for ice skating this Christmas as the £800million stadium seeks to stage as many events as possible to pay its way.
The FA wanted to utilise the venue a lot more in December, especially with motorsport's Race of Champions, which believes it has exhausted the London market, moving to the Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium in Beijing.
Winter wonderland: The perimeter of the Wembley pitch is set to be transformed into an ice skating rink in the build up to Christmas this year
More from Charles Sale... CHARLES SALE: 'We need our £5m to win World Cup'08/10/09 CHARLES SALE: Caborn confusion is 2018 'nightmare'07/10/09 Charles Sale: Lord Mawhinney takes swipe at big boys07/10/09 Charles Sale: BBC's cheapskate bid for England TV06/10/09 CHARLES SALE'S SPORTS AGENDA: Sepp Blatter fear leaves Mike Lee out in the cold in England 2018 World Cup bid05/10/09 Charles Sale: Stoke supremo Peter Coates cries foul in rant over refs02/10/09 CHARLES SALE: Sven turns pundit for online England01/10/09 CHARLES SALE: RFU take a liberty with their statue30/09/09 VIEW FULL ARCHIVE And the Wembley pitch, which was ruined by the laying of the tarmac surface required to race cars, will not suffer from the arrival of skating as the ice circuit will be installed around the perimeter.
Ice skating at Wembley in the three weeks before Christmas will compete with all the other London locations that offer the same opportunity.
But Wembley will be hoping the chance to do a number of laps of honour around the Wembley pitch on skates will have an extra attraction. That, together with the additional Saracens rugby union games taking place there, will help the Wembley bank balance.
Meanwhile, FA chief executive Ian Watmore has moved into the Wembley office vacated by commercial director Jonathan Hill - now on gardening leave - such is the urgent need to conclude sponsorship and broadcasting deals.
Investigative author Tom Bower, whose previous subjects include Robert Maxwell, Mohamed Fayed, Richard Branson and football corruption, is planning what could prove his most complicated book yet - a warts-and-all look at Formula One's ruling partnership of Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley.
The latest football rich list published by FourFourTwo magazine can find no place for Southampton owner Markus Liebherr in their top 100 despite Saints insiders understanding the German-born Swiss businessman may be worth £2.1billion.
This would put him fifth in the table between Tottenham's Joe Lewis and Arsenal's Stan Kroenke.
The football magazine say they were unable to verify Liebherr's wealth in time.
The club structure being put in place by new Birmingham City owner, Hong Kong businessman Carson Yeung (right), will include plenty of American-style vice-presidents.
It also points to three executives filling the duties carried out by former managing director Karren Brady - currently Sir Alan Sugar's eyes and ears on The Apprentice.
2018 isn't in the bagThe fall-out from England's 2018 World Cup bid nightmare at the Leaders in Football conference continued on Friday with the summit organisers reacting to the campaign team's complaint that they had no warning about rivals Australia's ambush marketing sponsorship of delegates' briefing bags.
But LiF say they gave England the full range of marketing and sponsorship opportunities at the event but none was taken up.
And the next time the England bid leadership of Lord Triesman and Andy Anson hold a press conference, their team should ensure no one working for a rival bid is listening in, as was the case at Stamford Bridge this week.
England fans arriving in Dnipropetrovsk on Friday might not have been impressed by literature from the Ukraine FA and local police handed out at the airport which requested them to 'be polite, control negative emotions and not to shout on umpires'.
Meanwhile, the seven wonders of Dnipropetrovsk include Shevchenko Park, which Chelsea fans will be relieved to read is named after a famous poet rather than their £30m Ukrainian misfit.
Fabio Capello's personal agreement, worth £100,000 a year, with national team kit suppliers Umbro will be in place until the European Championship in 2012, another sign that the Italian (right) might prolong his time as England manager beyond next summer.
ITV Sport made an accepted bid of around £250,000 for the highlights of Saturday's World Cup qualifier, which is being broadcast only on the internet and in selected cinemas.
But the deal was withdrawn when selling agents Kentaro stipulated it could not be announced until after the game.
