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Gary Lineker and Adrian Chiles are likely to emerge as BT's prime targets for the main presenting job on the telecom giant's new sports channel, which will show live Premier League games from next year.
BT shocked the broadcasting world on Wednesday by winning two packages of rights for 2013-2016, giving them 38 games for each of those three seasons for a total outlay of 738 million.
Biog hitters: Gary Lineker (left) and Adrian Chiles can expect to be courted by BT's headhunters
Crucially, 18 of their 38 matches each season will be 'first pick' games, which are virtually certain to involve the 'big six' sides - Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham - playing each other, mostly on Saturday lunchtimes.
BT insist they want a household name and a high-end broadcaster - with Premier League experience - to head up their topflight coverage on a channel that intends to carry other live sports, mainly football from various leagues.
This limits the field, making Lineker and Chiles front-runners for an approach, with Gabby Logan in the mix, too.
Des Lynam is almost certainly yesterday's man while Andy Gray and Richard Keys are still under a cloud after their departure from Sky in the Sian Massey sexism row.
BT will hire an external agency, possibly sports management giants IMG, to produce their Premier League content.
Almost all broadcasters, including Lineker, are technically freelancers these days, so there is no insurmountable barrier to a main presenter working for multiple channels.
Lineker already fronts Al Jazeera's Champions League coverage as well as hosting Match of the Day for the BBC and working on other major Beeb projects such as the Olympics.
Inside Sport can reveal that BT 'bid the house', according to one source, to go 'toe to toe' with BSkyB for most of the seven packages of rights available.
Under a cloud: Andy Gray (left) and Richard Keys
It was BT's bullishness rather than any intervention by Al Jazeera that pushed the league's total income from the auction up to an astonishing 3.018bn for the UK rights alone for three seasons from 2013-14.
ESPN were the third key bidders for the rights, it is understood.
Al Jazeera's sports division had contemplated an offer that could have blown anyone else, including Sky, out of the water.
'But they didn't step up in the end, not this time,' says a source.
It is believed that Al Jazeera will focus now on wresting Premier League Middle East rights from the Abu Dhabi Media group, owned by the Al Nahyan family, who also own Manchester City.
And Al Jazeera could be back for Premier League UK rights in 2016 - still six years ahead of the World Cup in Qatar in 2022.
Now they all expect an Italian carve-up
Reports that Italy fear a 2-2 draw between Spain and Croatia at Euro 2012 on Monday come laced with irony.
That result would guarantee Italy go home whatever they achieve against the Republic of Ireland.
Typically, bookies would price 2-2 at 14-1 but Spain-Croatia is as low as 3-1, showing punters expect a carve-up.
The irony is Italian football being embroiled in a match-fixing scandal that has led to dozens of arrests and investigations, including into international full-back Domenico Criscito, who was dropped from Italy's Euro 2012 squad as a result.
Ticking the boxes: Mo Farah wearing Nike at an event sponsored by adidas and Aviva
Mo won't have to go barefoot
Gold medal hopes Mo Farah and Mark Cavendish have been advised by sponsors Nike to sign a controversial TeamGB agreement obliging them to wear kit made by the BOA's backer and rival sportswear giant, adidas, at the London Olympics.
Nike are furious at the contract's existence and there had been private threats that some medal-winning stars - they are allowed to wear other sponsors' footwear when competing - might go to the podium barefoot in protest.
But while claiming the agreement is 'an unfair document that encourages athletes to break their longstanding personal contracts', Nike say they want their athletes to sign to avoid distractions - at least for now.
Vodafone holds for Orbis, while Spain awaits Willie Walsh's arrival - The Guardian
Vodafone has a history of getting its own way in takeovers – so the form book suggests we should back the mobile phone giant to complete its £1.04bn offer for Cable & Wireless Worldwide when shareholders vote on Monday. Still, there remains a small chance of a poor reception for the 38p-a-share bid from some fund manager called Orbis.
For reasons best known to itself, Orbis has been building a 19% stake in CWW – more than doubling its stake at an average of 53p a share over the past two years. Its clients will take a painful hit if the current offer goes through, but at least the chunky holding means it could conjure up some interference, as Vodafone needs 75% of the vote.
Orbis insists it will only decide which way to jump just before the meeting, and while it might be a long shot, it could delay a merger that will make Vodafone the UK's second largest telecoms group behind BT.
The deal also potentially allows Voda to use CWW's heroic losses to make tax savings – which would be a thorny area. Last week the mobile operator was busily penning letters trumpeting a "vindication" from the National Audit Office in regard to its infamous £1.25bn settlement with HM Treasury. That must have been pleasing. It can now address the PR damage by writing letters, not cheques.
Walsh faces strong headwinds in Madrid
This is your captain speaking. We will shortly be arriving in Madrid, where we are anticipating a bumpy landing. Please fasten your seatbelts.
That is essentially the scenario confronting International Airlines Group boss Willie Walsh, as the man piloting the British Airways and Iberia brands prepares to touch down in Spain for this week's annual general meeting.
Usually when you hear a London-listed company is meeting shareholders outside London, you assume the board is trying to duck something – and that would be the knee-jerk reaction here. Two years ago, at the last British Airways annual meeting before it merged with Iberia, Walsh was heckled by flight attendants and subjected to a barrage of hostile questions. Two seated rows of cabin crew members even mocked Walsh by laughing sarcastically when the boss said the airline was "not in dispute with staff" and in one sharp exchange a crew member stated: "I am not a child, Mr Walsh."
So is he wriggling out of a dogfight by decamping to Madrid? Don't be silly. Walsh's scrap del día is with his Spanish pilots. Tactfully, he calls their contracts "frankly outrageous".
James steps out on the playing fields of Dixons
We've heard very little about Sebastian James, the new boss of electricals retailer Dixons, since the publication of that Bullingdon Club photograph where he sat perched at the feet of the future prime minister.
Their relative positions have altered little since, but this week gives the son of Kent landowner Lord Northbourne (and descendant of Victorian politician Sir Walter James) a chance to enlighten the City on how he's finding flogging flatscreen TVs.
James, who is also an Eton contemporary of David Cameron's, took the controls at the retailer in February after Apple poached boss John Browett. Thursday's full-year results will be the new boy's debut outing and investors will be interested in how he is getting on, not least because retail-watchers reckon he will eschew City tradition and not trash his predecessor.
"We expect him to give an upbeat view of the company's prospects," predicts Philip Dorgan of broker Panmure. "This is worth mentioning, because many new chief executives like to lower expectations in the hope that they will beat them and subsequently look like heroes."
Still, don't expect such munificence if prospects turn worse. Old Etonians don't always retain their charm when threatened.
Seam of trouble for UK Coal
"If miners can increase production and cut costs, then the mine should have life. If they can't, we are looking at closure."
That may sound like a 1980s speech by Sir Ian MacGregor, the former boss of the former National Coal Board, but the comments are far more contemporary: they came in March from UK Coal, which was talking about its struggling Daw Mill pit in Warwickshire.
Britain's largest coal group needs to find more cuts – despite just announcing its first profit in four years – and these issues are likely to be raised at the firm's annual general meeting this week (along with the usual corporate governance stuff). Pirc is recommending investors oppose the re-election of non-exec Steven Underwood (it questions his independence) as well as voting against the remuneration report.
Not so long ago, a show of hands at the pits could bring down a government or trigger a power cut. That's changed: now it's miners fretting the lights will go out.
Ex-Virgin Mobile boss leads £8bn bid for phone giant - Daily Telegraph
“He came in originally with quite an ambitious plan to change the market and if he manages to pull this off [he’ll be able to see that through]”.
A second source added that Mr Alexander’s arrival would not necessarily mean the departure of current chief executive, Olaf Swantee, who replaced him last year.
“He [Mr Alexander] is not necessarily looking for another five-day-a-week chief exec role, and he and Olaf are good friends.
“The takeover would allow Tom to fulfil his long-standing ambitions for EE, without the water being muddied by politics between Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom.”
Last week, France Telecom’s finance director, Gervais Pellissier, said it would consider floating a stake in EE. “The partners need to distinguish between the short-term value we could get from an IPO or a sale, and the long-term value of being number one in the UK for the two companies,” he said at an industry conference.
An EE spokesman said this weekend that its owners had a clear five year growth plan: “Our shareholders continue to invest in our business, committing to £1.5bn in investment in our network over the next three years.
“We would not comment on any possible future shareholder structure of our business,” he continued.
Bankers sceptical over British mega-mobile deal - The Guardian
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