1) Indian Basketball Players Association launched in New Delhi.
- The Indian Basketball Players Association (IBPA) officially started its functioning with an inaugural meeting held at the Indian Medical Association.
- The meeting was attended by some of the well known basketball legends of the country. The list included several Arjuna awardees, Dhyan Chand awardees, Asian all-star player, former Indian captains and a number of international and national players.
- The members nominated Sajjan Singh as the president, while Jayasankar Menon, former Asian All Star Basketball player, will be the general secretary and Ashok Sharma, national player and FIBA commissioner, will be the treasurer.
2) Manchester United Football Club became World’s most valuable brand with 1.2 billion US dollars.
- The Manchester United became the World’s most valuable brand in the World football with 1.2 billion US dollars.
- Also, it became the first club to pass the 1 billion US dollar mark, it was revealed in a survey conducted Brand Finance, a leading brand valuation and strategy consultancy. The study titled `Football 50 2015`.
- The United has beaten Bayern Munich and Real Madrid to reclaim their position as the biggest brand in world football.
About Manchester United Football Club:
- Manchester United Football Club is a professional football club based at Old Trafford in Greater Manchester, England.
- It was founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878 and the name was changed to Manchester United in 1902 and moved to Old Trafford in 1910.
3) Shah Rukh Khan acquired CPL T20 team Trinidad & Tobago.
- Bollywood royalty is now set to rub shoulders with Hollywood glamour, following the purchase of the Trinidad & Tobago franchise in the Caribbean Premier League by star actor and Kolkata Knight Riders owner Shah Rukh Khan.
- Hollywood stars Mark Wahlberg and Gerard Butler already own CPL franchises. Wahlberg owns reigning champions Barbados Tridents, led by Kieron Pollard, while Butler owns Jamaica Tallawahs, captained by Chris Gayle.
- Khan is the first owner of an Indian Premier League team to own an overseas cricket franchise.
4) Hero named title sponsor of CPL.
- Indian automotive firm Hero MotoCorp will be the title sponsors of the Caribbean premier League (CPL) for its third season, to be held in the West Indies from June 20 to July 26.
- Hero has for long had associations with various sports, including cricket, golf, football and hockey. They have been associated with cricket for over two decades in various capacities.
- In the 2007 World Cup held in the West Indies, Hero was a Global Partner while in 2014 CPL, the firm sponsored St. Lucia Zouks and defending champions Barbados Tridents.
5) FIFA suspends 2026 World Cup bidding.
- FIFA announced it had suspended the bidding process to host the 2026 World Cup amid the furore surrounding corruption probes at the organization.
- FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke had announced in March that the host country for the 2026 tournament would be decided at a FIFA congress in Kuala Lumpur in 2017.
- But football’s world governing body was then plunged into a crisis at the end of last month when 14 current or former FIFA officials and sports marketing executives were arrested in Zurich.
6) Sir Wesley Winfield Hall inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of fame.
- Veteran West Indies fast bowler Sir Wesley Winfield Hall was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
- Winfield becomes 80th cricketer to be inducted in the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame and 18th from West Indies itself.
- Sir Wesley Hall had played a total of 48 Tests in his one decade career spanning from 1958 to 1969.
- After retiring from cricket, he entered into politics and served in Barbados Senate and also as Minister of Tourism in 1987. He had also served as President of West Indies Cricket Board from 2001 to 2003.
7) Interpol suspends deal with FIFA.
- International police body Interpol announced it was suspending a 10-year partnership deal with FIFA worth $22 million following a corruption probe into football’s world governing body.
- Interpol boss Juergen Stock said he was suspending the deal set up in May 2011 to create a 10-year “Integrity in Sport” programme.
- Interpol noted that the agreement with FIFA included a clause stating that ``the funding party declares... that its activities are compatible with the principles, aims and activities of Interpol``.
8) Documentary on cricket titled `Death of Gentleman` screened at Sheffield.
- Documentary film titled, Death of a Gentleman directed by Sam Collins and Jarrod Kimber was premiered at the Sheffield International Documentary Festival.
- The film will also be screened in London in the fourth week of June 2015.
- The documentary made in four years came into news as it raised questions on existence of Tests Cricket in 21st century.
- It shows the decline of five day game which is the purest form of the second most popular sport on earth, representative of tradition, history and identity.
- It narrates a story about greed, power, the endless pursuit of more and the precious things that are lost along the way.
- The Documentary shows interviews of ICC chairman N. Srinivasan, ECB chief Giles Clarke, and former cricketers Kevin Pietersen, Rahul Dravid, Ravi Shastri, Tony Greig and Lord Woolf among others.
9) Rafael Nadal won Stuttgart Open.
- Rafael Nadal earned his second title of the season and his fourth on grass as he defeated Serbian Viktor Troicki to become the first man to triumph on both clay and grass at the Stuttgart Open.
- The Spanish top seed set another minor record, as he won the inaugural grass edition after taking clay trophies at Stuttgart Open in 2005 and 2007. Stuttgart made the switch to grass starting with this edition as part of the new Wimbledon pre-season.
- Apart from this, India’s tennis player Rohan Bopanna along with his Romanian partner Florin Mergea won the Stuttgart Men’s Double Open title 2015. The Indo-Romanian pair defeated Austrian-Brazilian pair of Alexander Peya and Bruno Soares. This was fourth title for Bopanna.
10) Harbhajan Singh became 9th highest wicket-taker in Test Cricket.
- Harbhajan Singh, Indian off-spinner became the ninth all-time highest Test wicket-takers by claiming 416 wickets in 102 matches.
- He surpassed Pakistani legend Wasim Akram who stood at the ninth position with 414 wickets in 104 matches. He achieved the landmark quicker than Akram.
- The list was topped by Muttiah Muralitharan with 800 wickets to his name followed by Shane Warne and Anil Kumble with 708 and 619 scalps respectively.