BEIJING (PRNewswire-Asia) – Youku.com, China’s leading video site, announced that FIFA and CCTV have jointly authorized Youku.com with online broadcast rights to all FIFA 2010 matches. CCTV has also granted rights to Youku.com for on-demand broadcast of CCTV’s self-produced FIFA programs. With these agreements in hand, Youku now is positioned to offer the most complete range of World Cup broadcasts of any online video site in China.

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LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s Aggreko will provide temporary power for broadcast services from all 10 stadium venues during this year’s soccer World Cup in South Africa, adding to a run of high-profile contracts for the firm.

The contract also includes providing broadcasting power for the International Broadcast Centre and FIFA headquarters during the tournament, over the course of which 64 matches are expected to be broadcast to more than 3 billion people worldwide.

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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – World Cup organisers on Thursday agreed to increase the number of cheaper seats offered to South Africans to 29 percent of total tickets for this year’s tournament.

Local Organising Committee CEO Danny Jordaan told reporters the LOC board of directors had decided to raise the allocation from 11 percent to give poorer South Africans more chance of seeing games.

The decision should help sell tickets amid sluggish sales to foreigners but may also knock expected revenue from the month-long tournament, starting in South Africa on June 11.

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SUN CITY, South Africa (Reuters) – FIFA have denied reports that they will cut World Cup ticket prices or give away free seats to ensure capacity stadiums at the finals in South Africa later this year.

“There is no question of bringing down any prices,” FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke told a news conference on Tuesday in the wake of weekend media reports saying FIFA would reduce ticket prices to increase sluggish sales.

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CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – South Africa faces a possible health crisis if a swine flu outbreak strikes during the soccer World Cup this year, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi told parliament on Monday.

“One of our biggest nightmares is the fact that 2010 is going to be held in June when there is a possibility of another bout of H1N1,” Motsoaledi said.

The month-long tournament, hosted in Africa for the first time, is expected to attract 450,000 tourists during the South African winter.

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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Soccer World Cup sponsor MTN <MTNJ.J> said on Wednesday it had launched a content portal to enable its more than 100 million users to watch near live match highlights of the finals on their mobile handsets.

MTN is one of the sponsors of the tournament, giving it exclusive mobile content rights.

The portal called MTN Play, would enable MTN users to also watch video clips of their favourite teams and follow their teams’ performance during the tournament.

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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Tickets for the World Cup semi-finals and final, as well as two of England’s first round matches in South Africa, have sold out, FIFA said on Friday.

FIFA said there were no more tickets for England’s matches against the United States in Rustenburg on June 12 and Slovenia in Port Elizabeth on June 23.

Tickets for the match between world champions Italy and Paraguay in Cape Town on June 11 and Brazil and Portugal in Durban a fortnight later have also sold out.

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BEIJING (Reuters) – Yingli Green Energy, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of solar panels, was unveiled as the first Chinese company to sponsor the FIFA World Cup on Wednesday.

Also the first renewable energy company to back soccer’s showpiece event, Yingli becomes the seventh event-specific sponsor of South Africa 2010, which takes place from June 11 to July 11 this year.

“The announcement of Yingli Green Energy as the first Chinese company to be a global sponsor of the World Cup marks a historical moment,” FIFA President Sepp Blatter said in a video message to a news conference in Beijing.

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SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore’s telecommunications giants SingTel and Starhub could be cut out of broadcasting the soccer World Cup, forcing fans to view matches live on the internet unless a deadlock over rights fees can be resolved.

The two largest telcos in the South-East Asian city-state put in a joint bid to world soccer’s governing body FIFA for the right to screen the June 11-July 11 extravaganza, but their offer fell short of the asking price.

FIFA does not disclose the value of individual rights, but industry insiders put it at around the $30 million mark ($40m Singapore) for Singapore — a figure in line with fees secured by FIFA for each territory throughout the region.

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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Soccer World Cup sponsor Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Budweiser will give up some of its rights at fan parks as part of a strategic decision to focus its beer presence in stadiums at this year’s finals in South Africa.

The decision will allow other brewers to sell beer at fan parks — venues in public areas where supporters can watch games on big screens — during the tournament.

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