Warne's Cook rant could see Sky fall in ECB's good books in rights battle



Shane Warne’s persistent attacks on Alastair Cook are annoying the ECB to the extent that they could affect Sky Sports’ future TV rights negotiations.

Warne has regularly used the platform of the Sky commentary booth — or a newspaper column — to criticise the England captain, with Lord’s insiders believing it was part of an orchestrated Aussie effort to destabilise his team.

The latest broadside in predictable support of Warne’s exiled pal Kevin Pietersen comes at a time when Sky, concerned about the challenge from BT Sport, would love to secure long-term rights for cricket as soon as possible, as they have done with US PGA Tour golf up to 2022.

Debate: Shane Warne's comments over Alastair Cook (right) are not helping Sky Sports' rights hopes



But it will not help their cause if the leg-spin legend, who will be back as a Sky pundit this summer for Test series against Sri Lanka and India, keeps up his relentless anti-Cook agenda.

And the ECB are now in the healthy position of having BT Sport, with their deeper pockets, as an alternative to staying with Sky.



Well known sports lawyer Henri Brandman, representing Frank Bruno, served a libel writ on Lennox Lewis for alleged ‘Uncle Tom’ slurs against his client before their world heavyweight title fight 21 years ago.



And Brandman, who also acts for West Ham, came across Lewis for the first time since then when they were seated next to each other in the Upton Park directors’ box to watch the Hammers’ victory over Norwich.

Sign the dotted line: Lennox Lewis was happy to meet and greet fans at Upton Park

Celebrity jockey Frankie Dettori, who is trying to rebuild his reputation as the housewives’ favourite following a drugs ban, hasn’t been helped by his manager Peter Burrell telling upmarket Chelsea and Kensington area blog newspaper The Steeple Times that horse racing is ‘not really a sport for the lower orders’.



HarperCollins, whose sports arm has never fully recovered from its rash £5m five-book deal with Wayne Rooney in 2006, are disbanding their specialist sports section, although three Rooney memoirs remain to be written.



In contrast, Sir Alex Ferguson’s second life story published by Hodder & Stoughton has already sold more than a million copies since its launch last October, making it the fasting selling work of non-fiction ever — although Roy Keane might dispute its category.

Pageturner: Sir Alex Ferguson's memoirs are the fastest-selling non-fiction book ever

Jonny’s still a winner

England Rugby 2015 pay World Cup ambassador Jonny Wilkinson enough for him to travel from Toulon to west London junior club Grasshoppers to launch the tournament’s volunteer programme.



But although ER2015 will not disclose Wilkinson’s deal, he does give value for money on such occasions, eloquently stressing without any prompting the importance of volunteers throughout the rugby pyramid.

Meanwhile, ER2015 are calling their 6,000 volunteers ‘The Pack’. Thankfully they chose the obvious name themselves, rather than hiring an outside advertising agency to do so.

Icon: Jonny Wilkinson (left) at the launch of the Rugby World Cup volunteers - 'The Pack'

The career of highly respected anti-racism campaigner Paul Elliott has been on hold since his former friend Richard Rufus issued libel proceedings against him, claiming £150,000 in aggravated damages for harm done to his reputation.



This followed Elliott sending Rufus a text message containing the N-word after they fell out over a money matter and Rufus subsequently disputing that he had made their spat public. Now it emerges that Rufus, who has been declared bankrupt, lost his church, The Kingsway International Christian Centre, £5million in a series of failed investments in high-risk foreign exchange trades.



Football agent Mark Curtis has been the subject of complaints from rival middlemen about the number of deals he has done with his manager client Sam Allardyce at both Bolton and West Ham.



But West Ham say they have no concerns about the close links between Allardyce and Curtis and are even crediting the agent for being behind the free transfer from Real Betis of Spanish goalkeeper Adrian, who has kept four clean sheets in a row.

