Sportal website faces full-time whistle

Sportal, the privately owned sports website operator, is fighting for survival as its directors try to secure emergency funding to save the business from calling in administrators.

The chief executive, Rob Hersov, said he hoped a board meeting scheduled for today would lead to an agreement to rescue the business, which runs the popular rugby website Scrum.com.

It also runs websites for the AC Milan, Bayern Munich, Juventus and Sporting Lisbon soccer clubs and last year operated the official site for the Euro 2000 soccer competition.

The company, founded by Mr Hersov two years ago, needs £6m of new money to allow it to reach break-even, slated for the first quarter of next year.

Sportal is speaking with potential media partners and financial investors, whom Mr Hersov, a 40-year-old South African, declined to name.

Any injection of cash or takeover of the business is likely to lead to job losses at Sportal, which has already cut staffing at its offices in London and cities in Europe, Asia and Australasia from 300 to about 220 workers.

The company is one of the most successful sports content providers, with revenues of around £700,000 ($NZ2.2 million) a month from advertising and 100 partners that buy its syndicated content.

But the company has suffered from investors' plunging confidence in internet companies and a sharp drop in advertising on the web.

Yet Sportal was nearly taken over in a £280 million ($888 million) offer last year from the French TV company Canal Plus, part of the media giant Vivendi Universal.

The bid was pulled just weeks before completion when dot.coms started melting down.

Sportal initially attracted £56 million ($NZ177 million) from investors. These included the French fashion tycoon Bernard Arnault's Europ@web investment vehicle, the media giant BSkyB, the venture capital specialist 3i, the Japanese bank Nomura and the former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's Fininvest business.

Rival sports content businesses such as 365 Corporation, Teamtalk and Sports.com are also struggling to reach profitability and are watching events at Sportal closely.

- INDEPENDENT