MUMBAI: Soccer?s governing body Fifa has announced the extension of its broadcast rights agreement with Brazilian broadcaster Globo for the 2018 Fifa World Cup Russia and the 2022 Fifa World Cup Qatar.

The agreement covers cable, satellite, terrestrial, mobile and broadband Internet transmission across the country.

Fifa Secretary General J?r?me Valcke said, "Globo?s strength in distribution across such a vast territory as Brazil ensures the tournament can be followed by as many people as possible, and this was the determining factor in our decision to extend the agreement with Globo".

Globo chairman, CEO Roberto Irineu Marinho said, "For more than 40 years, Fifa and Globo have developed a very fruitful partnership which has led to significant rewards for both of us. During all these years, Fifa has succeeded in making football the most popular sport with a huge audience all over the world and Globo is very proud of being part of it. The most important thing to Globo is to allow our viewers to be part of the tournaments as if they were on the pitch themselves. For that reason, we are proud to extend this partnership".

Globo, a Fifa broadcast partner since 1970, has committed to unprecedented presence and coverage levels of the 2014 Fifa World Cup Brazil onwards, including free TV coverage as agreed between the two parties and in line with Fifa distribution policies.

MUMBAI: The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has announced that Istanbul (Turkey), Tokyo (Japan), Baku (Azerbaijan), Doha (Qatar) and Madrid (Spain) have submitted their application files to host the Games of the XXXII Olympiad in 2020.

The application file provides the IOC with an overview of each city?s project and is the key element in Phase one of the bidding procedure.

These files will now be studied by an IOC-appointed working group and a report made to the IOC Executive Board (EB). At its meeting in May in Quebec City, the EB will decide which cities will be accepted as Candidate Cities and proceed to phase 2 of the IOC?s bid process.

Following its decision, the Working Group?s report will be published on the IOC web site.

If they so wish, applicant cities may make their responses public and post them on their web sites as of today.

The election of the host city will take place on 7 September 2013 at the IOC session in Buenos Aires, Argentina.