Premier League lion to be culled as world's richest tournament plans brand overhaul 

The Premier League’s logo of a crowned lion is going to be replaced as part of their major rebranding exercise.

Despite having a successful image globally, they are planning an overhaul to maximise having a clean brand with no title sponsor next season. Instead of long-time backers Barclays, the richest league in the world can afford to have a roster of secondary rights partners.

A creative agency will be appointed after a tender this month, with the brief to link all the PL’s various work under the new branding. And the dated logo, based on the original tie-up with the FA’s three lions, is going to be culled.

However the PL’s name will not change in the wake of the Football League’s brainwave, which resulted in their rebranding as the English Football League.

The Premier League’s logo of a crowned lion is going to be replaced as part of their major rebranding

Instead of long-time backers Barclays, the league can afford to have a roster of secondary rights partners

Sky Sports plan to make sweeping job changes in a redundancy exercise that will see a significant number of staff in every department having to apply for their own jobs. Again, the £11million-a-match spend on Premier League rights is being blamed for the cost-cutting in personnel.

Channel 4 have owned 20 per cent of motorsport production company Whisper Films since August, so it is no surprise the latter have been chosen to produce the station’s Formula One coverage from March. This is despite Whisper Films having no experience of covering live sport, while their competitors in the tender, North One, have a long history in motorsport.

C4 defended the in-house choice by saying they are in a rush to prepare for their takeover of BBC’s F1 programming and Whisper Films have BBC’s F1 editor Mark Wilkin on board.

David Coulthard co-founded Whisper Films with Jake Humphrey. Coulthard will be integral in C4’s presentation team but Humphrey is staying as BT Sport’s football host. C4 say they will not employ all of BBC’s on-screen team, but popular pundit Eddie Jordan is a probable.

David Coulthard (left), who co-founded Whisper Films, will be integral to Channel 4's Formula One coverage 

Leeds United kit suppliers Kappa have been unable to supply a tracksuit that fits chunky manager Steve Evans, who still wears training gear from his former club Rotherham, albeit customised with Leeds branding.

Steve Evans wears a tracksuit customised with Leeds branding during the recent game at Nottingham Forest

FRENCH CONNECTION 

Cricket is in a better position to lobby for Twenty20 to become an Olympic sport following the appointment of the ECB’s director of public policy, Phil French, as the IOC’s director of public affairs in Lausanne. But the ECB will miss French’s government contacts at a time when their grassroots funding is under big pressure because of complex participation numbers.

Meanwhile, Andy Hunt, the former British Olympic Association chief executive who was also the celebrity-obsessed chef de mission for London 2012, is the new CEO of World Sailing. There is a warehouse somewhere full of the BOA’s unsold London 2012 scarves — regularly featured on Twitter parody account RandyShunt — for when it gets chilly out on the water.

Andy Hunt, the former British Olympic Association chief executive, is the new CEO of World Sailing

Bahrain's Sheik Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa has reinforced his position as favourite to become FIFA president with a tour of the Caribbean, where support for him has grown since his Asian Football Confederation signed an agreement to work with CONCACAF countries last May, before the FIFA corruption saga began. Meanwhile, Michel Platini and Sepp Blatter’s chances of having their eight-year bans overturned by the FIFA appeals committee are considered non-existent.

Michel Platini (pictured) and Sepp Blatter’s chances of having their eight-year bans overturned by the FIFA appeals committee are considered non-existent 

Wales have not only qualified for Euro 2016 — their first major finals since the 1958 World Cup — but the nation will host the first overseas visit of the new FIFA president after the February election. It is Wales’ turn to stage the rules-making IFAB summit, which takes place the weekend after the FIFA vote.

Manager Chris Coleman (pictured) has guided Wales to their first major finals since the 1958 World Cup

Watching the England cricket team happily mingle with other guests, including the media, at the Vineyard hotel in Cape Town during the second Test against South Africa made the FA policy of not even allowing non-essential members of the England party for Euro 2016 to stay at the team hotel in Chantilly all the more ridiculous.