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Fuelling fans' passion for sport worldwide

Fuelling fans' passion for sport worldwide

Independent21-05-2025
LiveScore Group is a Business Reporter client
LiveScore Group's vision to fuel fans' passion for sport has driven its growth for over 25 years, evolving from one of the world's first real-time sports update providers in 1998 to a pioneering leader in sports media and betting.
While its UK audience has been and remains a primary market, LiveScore Group, consisting of market-leading brands LiveScore, LiveScore Bet and Virgin Bet, has global ambition. In 2025, LiveScore Group is committed to growing its global media presence, localising its services and engaging with football fans across Europe, Latin America and Africa. This strategic move paves the way for new collaborations with regional brands, further deepening its presence in the market and beyond.
Less than six months into the year, LiveScore Group has already shared two significant market expansion moves to reflect such ambition, encompassing Europe and Latin America.
Kicking off in January was LiveScore Bet's launch in Bulgaria, a key market for the business's growth. This coincided with the announcement that Bulgarian and Premier League football icon Dimitar Berbatov has joined as the official European Ambassador for LiveScore Media and LiveScore Bet, demonstrating the group's commitment to bringing fans closer to the sport they love.
This was followed by news in April that an expansion in Mexico had been achieved via a strategic partnership with TV Azteca, Mexico's second-largest mass media company, aligning with LiveScore's broader strategy of collaborating with prominent regional broadcasters to deliver world-class sports experiences to new audience.
Livescore Group adapts its offering to cater to regional audiences. LiveScore marked the Mexico launch by implementing key product enhancements, such as American Football content and a localised For You section.
In South Africa, meanwhile, the Western Cape Board recently granted LiveScore Group licence to operate, triggering plans to launch Virgin Bet in the country in Q4, joining LiveScore Bet's presence in Nigeria to expand the Group's African market operations.
A global footprint provides LiveScore Group with an opportunity to address the existential challenges facing the sports media and betting industries – two £100 billion industries that LiveScore Group operates at the intersection of.
These challenges are consistent worldwide. The sports media landscape is fractured, with sports fans often needing subscriptions to multiple platforms, while sports broadcasts delivered by tech monoliths leverage fans to sell products and memberships.
The sports betting industry, meanwhile, continues to grapple with diminishing returns, tighter regulations, intense competition and higher taxation. Betting operators are all vying for the same pool of consumers, with few offering anything different. These challenges ultimately result in a saturated, inconvenient and expensive experience for sports fans.
LiveScore Group addresses these challenges by providing a seamless platform that streamlines the fan experience, eliminating the need for multiple subscriptions or hopping between apps, platforms and devices, enriching sports experiences with best-in-class products.
With its global expansion and localised services, LiveScore is building a true one-stop shop for fans globally, offering real-time updates, stats, free highlights, aggregated news and engaging content through its app and social platform. For fans who wish to include betting, a best-in-class sportsbook is integrated into the same ecosystem across several countries, ensuring a seamless experience for the previously app-hopping fan.
This convergence is what attracts and retains loyal users worldwide, with the LiveScore app servicing 100 million global consumers during any given football season, as well as one million sports bettors across four territories. This multi-brand strategy has delivered proven results, driving revenue from £5 million in 2019 to over £200 million in 2024.
By expanding its presence globally, enriching its content, enhancing user experience, forming strategic partnerships around the work and streamlining every aspect of the sports fan's journey, the organisation is poised to further boost annual revenues to £1 billion within the next five years.
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Sarina Wiegman: what makes England head coach so special
Sarina Wiegman: what makes England head coach so special

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time37 minutes ago

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Sarina Wiegman: what makes England head coach so special

If this is a 'proper England' team, the mantra that has helped a fearless and at times scrappy squad reach the European Championship final, then the unshakeable figure at its very core is typically Dutch. Immediately, she made us all wait. For 13 months the FA, which had announced her signing in August 2020, patiently watched Sarina Wiegman finish her contract with the national team of her homeland. She was loyal, and no amount of money or prestige would change that, eventually taking charge in September 2021. As it transpired, 13 months was rather inconsequential to the 56 years of hurt Wiegman ended by lifting the European Championship trophy on home soil in the heady summer of 2022. The 55-year-old's strong character was forged growing up in the Hague, where girls were not allowed to play in boys' teams. Instead, she cut her hair like a boy and carried on regardless, alongside her twin brother. Many times, in her formative years, she was told 'girls should not be doing that'. She resolved to take no notice. She had enough talent not just to defy the critics, but to play for her country. The 1988 Fifa Invitational Tournament was her first taste of the truly international game, as a teenager in China. She remembers the luxury of the White Swan hotel, where the Netherlands were based, something she had never experienced before. Her other memory of that tournament is that despite the thousands in attendance, they were not fans of women's football and would laugh when the players made mistakes or misplaced a pass. She did not believe a career in football, or coaching, was possible for a woman, so became a PE teacher, the basis of many skills which are now useful in her professional career. She juggled that alongside her playing years, winning 99 caps for the Netherlands, with the same steely determination and 'serious' attitude she has today. She became assistant coach of the Netherlands in 2014 and was given the head coach role on a permanent basis in January 2017, six months before the start of their home European Championship. Just as she replicated in England in 2022, she used the pressure of the home nation as a positive. She made difficult decisions too, dropping the captain Mandy van den Berg, whom she considered a friend, for the majority of the tournament. There was the cut-throat side to Wiegman which Steph Houghton, and several others, would later experience. Yet it is the foundation for her success. Euro 2025 is her fifth major tournament as a head coach — two with the Netherlands, three with England. She has reached the final in all five. To do so, her key coaching philosophies have remained the same, but she has tweaked her attitude and relationships with players. When she first arrived at the England camp in 2021, those present say there was immediately an aura around her, not least because she was someone who had done what everyone at St George's Park was so desperate to do: win. She was struck by the very English habit of talking around difficult topics instead of tackling them head on — more of a straightforward, typically Dutch approach. She told staff and players she would prefer them to be direct. 'You can just say what you think and still be very respectful,' she explained. Initially she was irritated by the jewellery and watches players wore, such were the fine details she focused on. Over time she has relaxed, realising that the players have thrived with the trust she has given them — as the bonds have grown, so too has the mutual respect. While other England teams, men's and women's, have had cliques and negative rivalry within, she has trusted them to sit with whom they wish, and authentically create friendships. Love Island, it is fair to say, is not Wiegman's cup of tea. But she is happy for her players to sit together and watch it, if it is something that helps them to relax. She has also encouraged players to share their footballing stories with one another. 'We've made ourselves very vulnerable . . . Sarina herself has made herself really vulnerable,' Beth Mead, the England winger, told the BBC. 'I think that gives us so much more togetherness, so much more trust in each other, that we're willing to share really tough moments with each other and how can we help each other. Sarina has really instilled that into us as a team. She's got our back, we've got her back.' The squad has dealt with difficult off-pitch events too. Mead lost her mother, June, to cancer, the same disease that Ella Toone's dad, Nick, died of. Wiegman's elder sister, Diana, died in June 2022 from ovarian cancer. Wiegman now has a tattoo on her right wrist, an infinity symbol featuring a small rose, as a tribute to Diana, and of endless love. Keira Walsh reflects that Wiegman has been more open, particularly in her celebrations and what the team has meant to her, in recent months. 'She's probably one of the best managers I've played for in terms of trying to make everyone feel loved,' the midfielder added. As Izzy Christiansen, the former England midfielder said on The Game podcast, Wiegman is the kind of manager players wish they had the chance to play for. She does so, with a hug — like the one she gave Michelle Agyemang after her semi-final heroics — but also with blunt honesty. Each player knows their role in the squad, as starter, or finisher, her version of substitutes. That has been hugely effective in all three of her tournaments in charge, despite clear weaknesses in squads at left back, and midfield depth. She has faced criticism for her late use of substitutes (Agyemang was not brought on until the 85th minute of the semi-final against Italy), but there is no one in the footballing world — at least the women's game — less influenced by the sway of public opinion than Wiegman. She believes wholeheartedly in the way she does things and will not change. 'She's not forcing me [to start her],' Wiegman said of Agyemang. It does not matter how dire the situation, how deep into borrowed time her team appear to be, they will look over and see Wiegman calm and collected. That honesty and directness also created a pre-Euros crisis, of sorts, when Mary Earps and Millie Bright both withdrew from selection for the squad, citing mental and physical fatigue. Wiegman would have liked to select both, but it is understood she had told them that they might not be guaranteed starters. During the 2023 World Cup, Wiegman was asked whether Lauren James's brilliant performances had 'let the cat out of the bag', amusing those in the press conference room as she looked utterly confused at the idiom. Now Wiegman considers herself more English, even stating she 'doesn't beat around the bush' when explaining those conversations with Earps and Bright. She enjoys a roast dinner and chicken tikka masala, as well as the country's obsessive sporting culture. She likes to relax with yoga, which she has perfected in the close confines of hotel rooms, and walks in nature. Her family — her husband, Marten, and their daughters, Sacha and Lauren — will explore the local areas around where England play, and that suits Wiegman, to know they are happy, and every now and again touch base with a coffee. She is not able to relax fully, in 'work mode' for the length of the tournament, but finds the increased spotlight on her baffling. Her family are one of the reasons she has continued to live in her homeland. She could have tried to change herself to be the Lionesses head coach — and there were plenty of detractors saying she should have been forced to move to England — but she has done things unapologetically her way. Mark Bullingham, the FA chief executive, said before the tournament that even if England had departed early, Wiegman's job would be safe. He has since added there is 'no price at all' which would see the FA part with her. Her contract lasts until after the 2027 World Cup and whenever she does choose to depart, it will be as a national hero — and with an honorary CBE which could be upgraded to a damehood if England win on Sunday. Wiegman never likes to make headlines or give any focus to non-performance matters, but she does understand, and is proud of, the wider ability of the Lionesses to effect societal change. After Euro 2022 and their celebrations in Trafalgar Square, squad members, including the defender Lotte Wubben-Moy, spoke on the team bus of how important it was that their victory should make real change for young girls. That was the foundation of a government pledge to ensure that girls and boys are offered the same sports during PE lessons and extracurricular periods. Wiegman was fully supportive and encouraged her players to use their platform for things they were passionate about. Aside from the external significance of Sunday's final, it is also the final match in which she will sit alongside her assistant, Arjan Veurink, on the touchline. He will depart to become the head coach of the Netherlands, having been integral to England's success. In the 2023 World Cup, his suggestion to change formation took an injury-hit squad all the way to the final. The duo are close, often huddled on the bench looking over an iPad or tactics board and if anyone is to convince Wiegman a different approach is needed against Spain, it will be him. There lies the complexity of Wiegman's leadership, an ability to delegate, valuing the opinion of others, with a caring touch of someone whom the players consider as similar to a mum. Make no mistake though, her word is final, her approach steadfast. In doing so, she has forced change, on the pitch and in society, in a way that felt simply impossible to deny. Now her team operate in the same manner, never beaten, even when the odds are stacked against them — the same grit that led Wiegman to the grandest of stages in the first place. England v Spain

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Italy withdraw from World University Games after gymnast seriously injured in fall
Italy withdraw from World University Games after gymnast seriously injured in fall

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