The panel reached an optimistic, consensus point of view on the state of soccer in the U.S. and its potential for growth. The increasing Hispanic demographic, the US National Team’s performance at the 2010 World Cup, and ESPN’s strong media commitment in the sport were all cited as indicators that the sport is here to stay.

Austrian egaming company Bwin, that will merge with PartyGaming at the beginning of 2011 to form a US$3.3 billion business, posted a 27% drop in quarterly operating profit in the second quarter of this year, hit by marketing costs for the football World Cup and “intensive preparations and start-up costs” during its launch in France.

English Premier League (EPL) soccer team Liverpool will receive a bumper World Cup payout following the exploits of star players Fernando Torres and Dirk Kuyt.

Arsenal are launching a new scheme to invite fans to buy a stake in the club.

Supporters will be able to purchase shares in Arsenal as the club launches its own Barcelona-style membership for thousands of fans.

During its press conference at Gamescom 2010, EA Sports has announced the signing of David Beckham as brand ambassador for EA Sports Active 2. The game will be released on the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3, the Nintendo Wii, the iPhone and the iPod Touch in Europe and Australia on the 19th of November 2010.

A poor season on the pitch, a sharp drop in season ticket sales and the collapse of Setanta Sports in Britain were blamed yesterday by Celtic Football Club for pushing it into the red last season.

Tottenham Hotspur Football Club announced a new shirt sponsorship for all domestic and European cup competitions, with Investec, the international specialist bank and asset manager.

While Hankook discloses the medium term aim of widening its soccer sponsorship strategy to include England’s Premier League and Italy’s A Series, it is currently furthering its commitments through new deals in Germany and Spain.

As the dust settles on the successful 2010 World Cup, a number of South Africans believe FIFA’s reputation has been dealt a blow by their policing of the showcase event but their brand is not what it seems. It has different components with different purposes.

The truth is their brand has performed superbly. Amidst local criticism FIFA just saw the 19th and highly successful episode of the World Cup go very much according to plan.

After each weekend’s matches, Yahoo!’s highlights will be available just after midnight on Monday morning, with weekday games going up at the same time the next day. As well as match highlights, Yahoo! users in the UK can see a variety of ‘best-of’ packages including ‘Best Goals’, ‘Best Saves’, ‘Tactical Debate’ and ‘Team of the Week’ .