Chelsea’s proposed £25m-a-year shirt sponsorship with Turkish Airlines, reportedly close to agreement before Christmas, is understood to have stalled.

Turkish Airlines, who have a major individual deal with Chelsea striker Didier Drogba, are still at the table but are believed to be cautious about paying that sky-high price. It would propel Chelsea above Liverpool and Arsenal in the PL shirt sponsorship table and into second place behind Manchester United.

Chelsea's current shirt deal with Samsung began in 2005 but is up for renewal next season

Turkish Airlines have spread their wings and have linked up with Manchester United

Other companies remain in Chelsea talks but demanding owner Roman Abramovich wants his club to be the No 1 commercially, even though Old Trafford are in a different league. Their shirt sponsorship with Chevrolet is worth £53m annually.

Chelsea say chief executive Ron Gourlay’s surprise departure last October was unconnected to no shirt sponsor having been secured to replace Samsung next season. But Gourlay’s exit was followed by a commercial revamp, with former Liverpool CEO Christian Purslow brought in to find that elusive backer.

The ECB are considering producing their own TV highlights of next summer’s domestic T20 Blast to broadcast on YouTube and other social-media outlets.

The radical plan is seen as a way of promoting the game to a younger audience when falling participation and dwindling T20 attendances are being blamed on Sky Sports’ monopoly of the live action until 2019.

However, the ECB’s £67million-a-year deal with Sky — which bankrolls the game — allows for a separate T20 highlights agreement with terrestrial TV.

The inaugural T20 Blast was won by Birmingham Bears last year

Andrew Flintoff made his return to the game in last year's competition after quitting the game in 2010

None of the free-to-air stations has shown much interest in the deal because of the big production costs and cricket’s dependence on weather.

So, influential voices in the ECB are looking at the governing body using their Sky-funded cash reserves to set up their own TV station. This would film the T20 competition in-house for wide distribution, such is the belief that cricket needs to find new followers.

This urgency is demonstrated by the desire to have a developed ECB TV — there is already an England cricket video news service on the internet — to cover T20 this summer.

The BBC, accused of treating its employees like ‘the enemy’ after it emerged 37 staff email accounts had been monitored as part of leak investigations, have long conducted internal inquiries to find moles — even for relatively innocuous stories. After Sportsmail reported comments by former England manager Sven Goran Eriksson from a BBC forum attended by 400 people, the BBC investigations unit examined mobile phone records of those suspected of talking to Sports Agenda.

Adidas replace Nike as the £750m Manchester United kit supplier next season. And the first signs of the swoosh shift in emphasis to the noisy neighbours comes with City manager Manuel Pellegrini holding a question-and-answer session in the Nike store in Abu Dhabi next week, during a winter training break. Former United manager Sir Alex Ferguson is said to have become a lot less co-operative about Nike promotions after the US company ceased their individual deal with him.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who said he would wait until the New Year celebrations were over before confirming he will stand for a fifth term, is now planning a low-key election campaign with a short mission statement next month.

The challenge from Prince Ali of Jordan is not causing much anxiety. FIFA insiders reckon only 10 territories in UEFA will oppose Blatter — one being the FA.

78-year-old Sepp Blatter is set to stand for a fifth term as FIFA president since taking over in 1998

There was sensitivity around Liverpool over the Christmas period about the sale of Warrior-supplied replica kit, because parent company New Balance will be on rebranded Liverpool shirts next season. The American sports manufacturers have a heavy presence in Asia, where Liverpool want to make inroads.