Sport Governance Conference @ Birkbeck

These days the back pages of newspapers are as likely to be full of stories about anti-doping measures, sponsorship, lottery funding, event bidding, video streaming, third party player ownership and points deductions as they are about sporting events themselves and so the Birkbeck Sport Business Centre's annual conference this weekend, which features all of the above topics and many more, is very much of the moment.

On Friday and Saturday politicians, sport insiders and academics will give dozens of presentations all under the umbrella title of "The Governance and Regulation of Sport". There's plenty on football, but there are also many general sessions on offer as well as specific talks on rugby union, tennis, athletics, Gaelic sports, formula one and cricket. In light of the last twenty-four hours we're particularly looking forward to Friday lunchtime's "Case Study of the Stanford Super Series, the West Indian Cricket Board and Digicel" to be given by Paul Kitchin of London Metropolitan University whom we bet is, even as we speak, hastily redrafting his bullet points.

Attendance is open to the public at the price of £35 per day with another £35 to pay if you'd like to attend Friday evening's dinner at which the speaker will be Test cricketer, and recent author of "What Sport Tells Us About Life", Ed Smith, or you can pay £95 all in. If you're interested in attending, first visit the event's website to check out the full programme and then head to the online booking form.