Industry Shorts: Birmingham 2022, Red Lioness

Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) has signed a partnership agreement with Longines for the next three editions of the Commonwealth Games, starting with Birmingham 2022. 

The announcement comes on Commonwealth Day, and also the same day that Birmingham 2022 unveiled a Longines Countdown Clock in the heart of Birmingham’s Centenary Square.

The agreement represents the first ever multi-Commonwealth Games partnership in history, and as well as receiving exclusive status as the ‘Inaugural Partner of the Commonwealth Sport Movement’, the brand will also provide timing and scoring equipment for every single event within the next three Commonwealth Games. READ MORE

BT Sport says more than 1,000 pubs have signed up its Red Lioness Pledge, which launched in November 2019 with the aim to inspire venues around the country to show more women’s football.

The Stonegate Pub Company confirmed that 150 of its pubs have committed to the pledge, and sees the group join Greene King as well as dozens of independent pubs to get behind the Red Lioness pledge.

Everton have announced that they will increase investment into its women’s team, while club CEO Denise Barrett-Baxendale will head up a new Strategic Leadership Team, which will ensure a strategic vision mirrors that plotted for the men’s team.

The new structure will see club Director and Chief Finance Officer Sasha Ryazantsev take on a new role of Managing Director and ensure Everton Women has representation on the club’s board.

Former staff of Flybe were turned away at gate as Exeter Chiefs played Bath at Sandy Park.

Staff of the company, which went into administration last week, who had won tickets to the game arrived at the stadium with tickets only to be told those tickets had ‘been cancelled’.

Exeter-based Flybe had been a sponsor of the Premiership club since 2010.