Shorts: UK Athletics, Premier League, Woa
Jack Buckner has been announced as the new Chief Executive of UK Athletics following the conclusion of an open recruitment process.
Buckner, who is currently the Chief Executive of British Swimming and previously the British Triathlon Federation, will take the reins at UK Athletics as the sport commences build-up to the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Buckner said “Athletics has been a huge part of my life since I was a teenager and I can’t wait to be trackside later in the year. Taking on the CEO role will be an exciting challenge and one I feel privileged to have been offered. I am looking forward to getting started.”
Coordinated by Gambling With Lives, a group of twenty English football clubs, including Luton, Bolton, Tranmere and Forest Green, have written a letter to the UK government urging the issue of a blanket ban on gambling sponsorship.
“As owners, directors, and executives responsible for our clubs, we have witnessed the harmful growth of gambling sponsorship and advertising in football, including the negative impact on our fans,” the letter reads.
The Premier League has issued an invitation to tender (ITT) for UK live audio commentary rights for the three seasons 2022/23 – 2024/25. The rights packages will include two Saturday 3pm matches per weekend fixture programme, and all matches played in other regular weekend time slots.
The Premier League’s current UK audio commentary partners, for the three seasons 2019/20 – 2021/22, are BBC Radio 5 Live and talkSPORT.
London-based WithU, a fast-growing fitness app, has announced a three-year partnership agreement with parkrun UK, the organisation that hosts and promotes free, community running events open to everyone.
WithU will become the exclusive digital fitness partner of parkrun in the UK, alongside other household names such as Vitality, Co-op and London Marathon Events. WithU will create a dedicated range of parkrun content that will be free to access through its app. This will include an extensive selection of running-based workouts, warm-ups and cool-downs, and a parkrun event directory.
The World Olympians Association Executive Committee has met and discussed the situation in Ukraine and the ramifications for the Olympic Movement. The WOA Executive Committee decided that the fundamental principles of Olympism as outlined in principles 4 and 6 of the Olympic Charter should be respected at all times.
Despite the IOC recommendation to ‘not invite or allow the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes’ the WOA strongly believes that decisions on whether to compete or not should be left to each individual athlete and should be based on the fundamental principles of the Olympic Charter.
Tom Barbour has been appointed as the new Group Digital Director at GumGum.
Barbour previously worked as a Senior Sales Manager within the global advertising agency but will now manage the team responsible for the UK revenues of Dentsu, Publicis Group, and Omnicom Group.
Image: Unsplash
