Compiled by MARY HANNIGAN

Sky's big fight glitch advice goes down well

THERE'S A fair old chance, you'd imagine, Wladimir Klitschko and David Haye will meet again, and that Sky will host the rematch on their pay-per-view channel, as they did last weekend's WBA heavyweight bout.

Haye, after all, had a broken toe going in to the fight, so he’s confident he could do better next time and regain some respect – after the “Hero Toe Zero” headlines in his national press.

Sky, though, will hope for a smoother experience should the re-match go ahead, after technical problems meant many did not see the fight.

The company did, to its credit, give those customers some very useful Twitter advice on the night:

“Hi everyone, as we are still experiencing technical difficulties with bookings, please find your nearest pub.”

As a chap by the name of Will Jackson replied: “Best. Customer. Advice. Evah!”

City Chevy too quick to spray it with Tevez

THE TIMING, it has to be said, was a little unfortunate, Mike Radcliffe and Shaun Donohoe appearing in a slew of British papers this week showing off their customised Chevrolet, a four-wheeled shrine to their beloved Manchester City.

The pair paid €19,000 for the car, another €5,500 to have it transported from North Carolina to Manchester, and around €33,000 to have it customised. The face of Sheikh Mansour, the club’s billionaire owner, adorns, naturally enough, the spare wheel at the back, City legends Colin Bell, Franny Lee and Mike Summerbee appear on one side of the car, and three current players appear on the other: Nigel De Jong, David Silva and . . . Carlos Tevez.

In other news this week, Tevez released a statement: “It is with great regret that I have to inform Manchester City of my wish to leave the club. I would like to state that I have great respect for the club, its supporters and the owner Sheikh Mansour, who has been nothing other than respectful to me.”

Mike and Shaun should probably wait until the transfer window closes before they get a respray done. Who knows, De Jong and Silva might leave too, maybe in a swap for Lionel Messi?

Golfing Sumos' days are numbered

THE image of Sumo wrestling has, alas, taken a right battering in recent times, allegations about match-fixing, illegal gambling, drug use and the misbehaviour of some of the sport’s leading stars prompting sponsors to run for the hills and Japanese broadcaster NHK to drop live coverage of tournaments.

It’s all a far cry from the days when Sumo’s biggest names won lucrative advertising contracts, like Takamiyama (all six feet two and

32 stone of him). It was only this week he reminisced about his 1977 ad for a portable television, when he tap-danced across the screen with the device resting on one hand.

“I had never tap-danced before in my life,” he said, convincingly, “I had to practice a lot.”

The Japan Sumo Association is, therefore, hell-bent on sorting things out and restoring the good old days, introducing a number of new rules for competitors which, if not adhered to, will result in them being expelled from the sport.

“This is really the start so I want the wrestlers to be braced for it,” said JSA chairman Hanaregoma. “I want them to go into battle feeling the nerves.”

What are the key new rules? “There will be no playing golf and they will be told to adhere to the rules of traffic, he announced.

Golfing, red-light-breaking Sumo wrestlers? The sport had more problems than we thought.

Tweeters make French toast of Blubbin' Bubba

AFTER A difficult few days for the Florida golfer, Bubba Watson was, it seems, back on form during the week, reassuring his 155,399 followers on Twitter that “life has never been better, growing in my walk with the Lord”.

He has, then, survived the storm that followed his trip to the French Open last week, an experience he found so deeply unpleasant he admitted that he wanted to get home “as fast as possible” – and that was after just the first round.

“It’s not a normal tournament – it’s just so different for me,” he said. “There’s cameras, there’s phones, there’s everything. No security. I don’t know which holes to walk through. There’s no ropes.

“It’s just different. I’m not comfortable and it’s strange to me.”

Needless to say, he missed the cut.

It was, though, his comments about the country’s most beloved landmarks that got him in to a heap of bother, making it unlikely that he’ll be a recipient of the French Legion of Honour any day soon.

The 32-year-old was so homesick that not even the sight of the Eiffel Tower (“That big tower”), the Arc de Triomphe (“An arch in the middle of the road”), the Louvre (“This building that starts with an L”) or the Palace of Versailles (“That castle next to where I am staying”) could perk him up.

Those remarks, along with his general behaviour during the tournament, didn’t go down terribly well.

Raphael Jacquelin, who played the first two rounds alongside Watson dismissing the American’s complaints as just an “excuse” for playing so poorly.

Stuart Appleby, meanwhile, responded to Watson on Twitter, suggesting that there was a rumour he’d had surgery to his mouth “to make it smaller so foot won’t fit with as much ease”.

“Hope it’s successful,” he added.

Christina Kim, who plays on the LPGA Tour, described him as “a spoiled prima donna”, a view that appeared to be shared by Sky Sports commentator Ewen Murray.

“Bubba, or should I say by this time, Blubba, broke all of the codes and ethics among professional golfers.

“No one is more important than anyone else. His behaviour wasn’t just naughty, it was embarrassing.”

The mother of all rebukes, though, came from the Daily Telegraph’s Oliver Brown who described Watson as “the buffoon who orders a cappuccino, and then bleats about how it compares to the supersized version at his branch of Dunkin’ Donuts”.

And he was only warming up.

“Watson behaved at the French Open in the fashion of every oafish American tourist you dread to encounter in the patisseries of Old Europe . . . he is simply the front man for a legion of good ol’ boys (on the USPGA Tour) who rarely travel, rarely experiment, and who as such exhibit all the aesthetic appreciation of Ronald McDonald.”

Ironically enough, Brown had conceded in the piece that “generalisations on cultural outlook can be invidious”, having opened with a quote from Appleby:

“Americans are like a bag of prawns on a hot day – they don’t travel well.”

Brown’s work wasn’t hugely appreciated by those who commented on it, although it was hard to figure out whose side this fella was on: “This bigoted article was just a lame excuse to bash right wing, religious, gun-toting rednecks.”

Watson, though, appeared to acknowledge he hadn’t done himself any favours during his ill-fated trip to Europe, declaring that “everything in Paris is awesome” and offering a sort-of-a-sorry: “If I offended anyone I apologise – definitely wasn’t my intention.”

He also confirmed that he would, indeed, be playing at next week’s British Open, despite vowing that his French visit would be the last time he’d appear in Europe.

Northern Ireland’s own David Feherty, the former professional golfer who now works as a broadcaster with CBS and the Golf Channel, was one of the few voices to offer the player some support – sort of – in the form of a couple of tweets, in his hour of need:

“Hey Bubba! Feherty here. I’m with you man, just put it away and go play. We all make mistakes, and I’m way in front of you! I fart in most people’s general direction, and they usually get over it.”

That was nice.

Watson, you’d like to think, will get over this too, although his mood seemed to have darkened a little on Twitter again later in the week, perhaps weighed down by all the condemnation.

A Colin Sword asked him: “Hey Bubba, do you have 140 characters worth of advice to hit my driver straight?”

Bubba’s reply: “No.”

He should really have said: “Non!”

ESPN deal brings Wimbledon alive

ESPN’s $400 million-plus, 12-year deal with the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club for exclusive American broadcast rights to Wimbledon brings to an end NBC’s 43-year association with the tournament.

The sports network already had the cable rights to the early rounds of Wimbledon, but the new deal secures them exclusive coverage of the full tournament.

The news has generally been well received by tennis fans in the States, for whom NBC’s habit of showing matches on “time delay”, because they were reluctant to interfere with their highly profitable Today show, was infuriating.

“You won’t have to hide anymore to avoid finding out how matches went,” wrote sports journalist Greg Couch, “you won’t have to wait for NBC to get around to showing matches after the Today show, or after Martha Stewart shows us how turn hydrangeas blue instead of pink.”

The New York Times gave an example of how NBC’s “adherence to rigid time slots led to chaotic incidents”, citing the 2009 match between Tommy Haas and Novak Djokovic. “ESPN2’s live coverage was cut off at 10 am Eastern, when NBC’s window of coverage began. But it carried the Roger Federer-Ivo Karlovic match on a two-hour delay, then showed the rest of Haas-Djokovic.”

As Couch put it, you had to be a “contortionist to be a tennis fan”.

In contrast, ESPN, 80 per cent of which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, will have live coverage all the way, on ESPN, ESPN2, its broadband channel ESPN3 and on its mobile apps.

The network’s estimated $40 million annual rights fee exceeds the combined total of the $10 million it paid under its previous contract, and the $13 million NBC had been paying. Wimbledon chief executive Ian Ritchie, though, insists it wasn’t about money, it was about the live coverage ESPN could guarantee.

“I’m always impressed when people say stuff like that with a straight face,” said Couch. “The private All England club just signed a 12-year deal for half a billion dollars and then told us it’s not about money?”

He’s not complaining, though – his “contortionist” days are done.