THE Securities and Exchange Commission’s sensational “complaint” against Sir Allen Stanford made it another bleak week for the international sports business.

 

There were, however, pockets of better news.

 

FIFA reported a “global scramble” for 2010 World Cup tickets when its online portal opened up on February 20.

 

And the International Olympic Committee (IOC) unveiled the biggest deal so far involving TV rights for the 2014 and 2016 Olympic Games.

 

The agreement was with the sports agency Sportfive, which has acquired the rights to the Games across all media platforms in 40 European countries, including most importantly Russia, the 2014 Winter Games host.

 

I am given to understand that the agreed price was 250 million Euros (£221 million).

 

If this seems like a bargain price for a continent on which both the 2014 and 2016 events might actually take place, a number of things need to be taken into account.

 

First and foremost, six big markets - Italy, Turkey, France, Germany, Spain (a possible 2016 host) and the UK - are missing.

 

The IOC has already sealed a deal put at 152 million Euros (£134.7 million) with Sky Italia for Italy, as well as an agreement worth, I believe, 23 million Euros (£20.3 million) for Turkey with Fox Turkey.

 

Lausanne plans to begin direct negotiations with broadcasters and media groups for the remaining four territories “in due course”.

 

I understand that this could once again include agencies.

 

Secondly, at least 200 hours of Summer Games coverage and 100 hours of the Winter Games are to be shown in each country on free-to-air television.

 

So pay-TV companies will on the face of it be unable to secure exclusive broadcasting rights over the most popular events in each country - something that would surely have ratcheted up the value of the rights substantially at the cost, almost certainly, of much-reduced audiences.

 

The same free-to-air stipulation will apply in the four remaining European markets.

 

Rejoicing in Lausanne

 

The final point to bear in mind is the weakness of the world economy.

 

So far, then, Europe has yielded deals worth 425 million Euros (£376.7 million) for 2014-16, compared with a total figure of 672 million Euros (£595.4 million), or so I understand, for 2010-12, when every territory bar Italy is covered by an agreement with the European Broadcasting Union, the IOC’s traditional European partner.

 

As insidethegames reported in December, the IOC rejected the EBU’s bid for 2014 and 2016, leaving EBU President Fritz Pleitgen to reflect that there are “different views about the future monetary broadcast value of the Games”.

 

The success of the IOC’s gamble - in strictly financial terms at least - now depends on how much can be raised from the four big markets that remain to be negotiated.

 

If the IOC can average as much in these as it secured in Italy, then the European total would exceed the magic 1 billion Euros (£886 million) and the shores of Lake Geneva would echo with the Movement’s rejoicing.

 

But for this to happen, I fancy, there will have to be real - and vigorous - competition in all four markets.

 

The question is: will this materialise in current, extremely sick, economic conditions?

 

Coe's pricelss experience will boost 2018 World Cup

 

● Lord Coe’s addition to the board of England’s 2018 World Cup bid should prove a big help in addressing one of its structural weaknesses.

 

As chairman of FIFA’s Ethics Committee - a role from which he is taking a leave of absence, as first predicted here two weeks ago - he has priceless experience of the governing body’s at times hard-to-fathom inner workings.

 

This may, I think, prove even more valuable than Coe’s standing as a proven winner in another high-profile international sports bidding contest.

 

After all, with Sir Keith Mills, Richard Caborn and David Magliano, the World Cup bid was already well endowed with battle-hardened veterans of the race for the 2012 Olympics - and watch this space because that list may soon grow even longer.
 
It remains to be seen whether Premier League chairman Sir Dave Richards will join Coe and the others around the bid’s increasingly crowded boardroom table.

 

Richards - who also played a far from negligible behind-the-scenes part in London’s Olympic triumph - would bring to this table a breadth of international football contacts that few can match.

 

His presence might also reassure anyone who has struggled to grasp why the chairman of the second, third and fourth tiers of English club football was given a senior place on the board, while the chairman of the top tier of English club football - whose matches are these days devoured by fans all over the world - was left off.

 

My guess is that he will join, although this might require a deal of hard bargaining that could stretch beyond board meeting, which was held yesterday.

 

This is also certainly my hope, since it would signal the sort of unified front without which any bid would be hard put to succeed.

 

England lack a Beckenbauer or Platini

 

There remains the matter of whether Lord Triesman will continue in his dual role as bid chair and chairman of the Football Association.

 

Though I have detected unease, it seems peculiarly difficult to identify a potential alternative bid chairman: English football is sadly bereft of articulate Franz Beckenbauer or Michel Platini-type figures.

 

Though Coe’s name will probably come up now he has joined the board, I can’t really think this would be a good idea at such a critical juncture for the London 2012 project.

 

In any case, the board’s prominence may diminish somewhat now that the bid’s executive is properly up and running.

 

Unless or until some unheralded star candidate emerges, Triesman’s prospects of remaining, assuming that is his wish, look for the time being reasonably strong.

 

David Owen is a specialist sports journalist who worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering last year's Beijing Olympics