Sport

Padraig Harrington, an Irish golfer currently ranked ninth in the Official World Golf Rankings, has pulled out of the British Open at St Andrews to be with his family. The top golfer's father, Patrick, passed away yesterday after a long battle with cancer. Harrington's place in the competition will be filled by Sweden's Henrik Stensen. Patrick Harrington who was a former garda, was diagnosed with cancer in March when Padraig won his first US tour title. Patrick who was 72 played in two All-Ireland Football Finals with Cork. Padraig Harrington

The former managing director of BSkyB, Trevor East, has been appointed director of sport at Irish sports TV company Setanta. Prior to working for BSkyB Mr. East, 54, was head of sport at ITV for 22 years. The new role will involve gaining the rights to different sports events, and possibly even the premiership. Setanta initially started out by broadcasting GAA games to Irish people living abroad particularly in the US. Today, backed by an investment by AIG, it is pursuing an ambitious plan to grow its business - it currently broadcasts the Sco

The International Olympic Committee has announced today that baseball and softball are to be cut from Olympic competition from 2012. Rugby, karate, rollersports, golf, and squash have been rumored to be included. The IOC meets later today to discuss the new Olympic Program. The vote, held in Singapore, surprised some supporters of the sports, who believed that there were enough votes to retain them.

London is to host the 2012 Olympic Games. The announcement was made today by International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge following four rounds of voting, penultimately shortlisting London and Paris. 116 members of the IOC in Singapore voted throughout the rounds from a pool of cities comprising of Paris, Madrid, London, New York, and Moscow. The final tally was 54 votes for London, and 50 for Paris. The voting came after all five cities made their final presentations to the assembled members. The news was met with screams

Butch Leitzinger and Elliot Forbes-Robinson drove the #4 Pontiac Crawford GTO into victory lane at Daytona International Speedway late Thursday night as the winner of the Grand American Rolex Sports Car Series Brumos Porsche 250. Early in the race, the #66 car driven by Jorg Bergmeister and Max Papis passed the #10 car in the pole position, maintaining the lead positions for most of the race. The second caution at lap 32 occurred after a car spun on the infield. The caution lasted 3 laps, and only two laps later a two-car crash happened, sen

Serbia and Montenegro international, Mateja Kežman, will sign a three year contract with Atlético de Madrid today. The striker spent an unsuccessful season with Chelsea and all three parties have agreed to this €7 million transfer. Kežman started his career in Serbia and Montenegro, where he became popular while playing for Partizan, Belgrade. He was bought by the Dutch team PSV, where he was a prolific striker, setting a record number of goals per season. His year in Chelsea was not as successful, as he mostly started games as a substitute an

Forward Maciej Żurawski, one of the most famous Polish footballers, accepted a contract offer from Celtic yesterday. He is now waiting for agreement between Celtic and his former club, Wisla Krakow, where he played for nearly 6 years. Wisła wants to receive a lump sum payment at once, but Celtic would like to pay circa 3 millions euro in installments. Żurawski, the star of Polish national football team, rejected an offer from Trabzonspor. The Turks had offered approximately 100 thousand euro more for him. If he had accepted this offer, he wou

Myron Cope, a locally famous sports announcer for the Pittsburgh Steelers, a National Football League team, has announced his retirement from the booth, effective immediately. Cope had a 35 year career announcing Steelers games with his familiar scratchy voice, often punctuated with unique Yiddish expressions, such as "Feh" and "Yoi", which brought delight to fans.

Five prisoners were beheaded and got their heads exhibited by the rioters during a violent riot in the "Zwinglio Ferreira" Prison, located in Presidente Venceslau, São Paulo State, Brazil. This is the most serious riot of prisoners in the 19 year existence of the penitentiary. The rebellion began Tuesday, at 8:30 a.m. and it finished Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. Some heads belonging to the murdered prisoners were put on iron spears so they could be shown from the roof of the prison. Some prisoners played football with one of the heads. Accordin

More unrest occurred overnight across Iran following the national soccer team's June 9 victory over the team from neighboring Bahrain in a World Cup qualification match. Soccer Jubilation Pushes Boundaries The match marked the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that women could attend a soccer match. A group of one hundred pre-selected women were admitted to the game under official escort; a protest group of a further twenty-six women attempted to gain admission, but were dispersed by police. A young Tehran resident reported vi

The intentions of Manchester United's new owner, U.S. sports tycoon Malcolm Glazer, for the club have been revealed. Although spokespersons for Mr. Glazer (including his son) have stressed that nothing has been finalised, it appears that he intends to raise ticket prices, income, profits whilst capping spending on player transfers. Mr. Glazer - who owns over 76.2% of the club's shares through his investment company, Red Football - enraged fans when he started to accumulate shares earlier this year in an attempt to gain control of the what amou

BSkyB, the UK television broadcasting and transmission company, faces a serious rival bid from Setanta Sports for the rights to broadcast Premiership football. BSkyB, which dominates the satellite TV market, has held the rights to the broadcast Premier League games since 1992. They paid £1.02bn for its current three year contract. Setanta has approached the managing director of BSkyB, Trevor East, with the intention of luring him to Setanta to lead the acquisition of sports rights. Mr East, who's contract runs out soon, has not yet made a deci