MUMBAI: The joint venture between Infront Sports and Media and Dentsu, created to handle the distribution of Asian broadcast rights to the 2010 and 2014 soccer Fifa World Cups and all Fifa events between 2007 and 2014, has been officially launched.

The new company, called Football Media Services (FMS), is a result of Fifa’s award of the Asian rights to the Infront and Dentsu joint venture earlier this year. It was in March that Dentsu and Infront came together to form a joint venture to ward off a daring attempt by Nimbus Sport to get the rights,

FMS has its headquarters in Singapore. It will handle the marketing of all television, radio, broadband internet and mobile broadcasting rights to the 2007-2014 Fifa events including the 2010 and 2014 Fifa World Cups in key Asian territories.

The company is headed by Michael Francombe, who used to be an executive director with Infront in Switzerland.

FMS has already been active in the sale of Fifa events in Asia. It will shortly announce a substantial new contract for a major Asian territory setting a new benchmark in the region and covering broadcast rights for all 2007-2014 FIFA events.

Dentsu CEO Tomoharu Tsuruda said, “We have known and worked with the Infront team over many years, both as partners and friendly rivals. We have much respect for their abilities and believe that this joint-venture will deliver the best possible results for FIFA.”

Infront, president and CEO Philippe Blatter says, “We are exited about our partnership with Dentsu. Our joint know-how provides a strong foundation to meet the expectations for successful distribution of the Asian broadcast rights. The results of FMS’s early initial negotiations in some of the major territories in Asia are already leading to very promising results.”