As if it was not enough to shoulder the job of rescuing Argentina's World Cup qualifying campaign from the rocks of a 6-1 defeat by Bolivia, Diego Maradona is looking to develop business in the Middle East, where he is reportedly looking at opening a football academy in Qatar and a football bar, the Maradona Sports Café, in Dubai.

The café is an interesting concept for two reasons: 1) it will take its social responsibility seriously and donate a percentage of profits to a charity aimed at reducing malnutrition in Africa and Latin America, and 2) it will ignore the evidence of history that football and beer go together by declaring itself alcohol-free.

The explanation comes from Maradona's cousin and fixer, Remigio Martín Maradona. “This is not just an ordinary sports café,” he said. “It will save lives. We want it to be a family place. We don't want it to be a sports bar, like a British hangout where people drink beer and whisky.”

Visionary Holyfield

Saving the world and sport, Part II. Reports from Addis Ababa declare that Evander Holyfield's next bout will be in July in Ethiopia, against the country's Washington DC resident, Sammy Retta. Retta, perhaps overexcitedly, has compared the bout to the Rumble in the Jungle. Holyfield, left, has promised to donate a large part of his fee to Aids charities. “If we don't find a cure to this, we'll be extinct,” he said.

Setting the PACE

Media training is an industry that grows ever larger in professional sport, although a curious spin-off of next year's Winter Olympics in Vancouver involves prostitutes being educated in how to deal with the invasion of the world's press.

Global sporting events of this nature rarely pass without a fleeting media reflection on how the sports industry brings with it a demand for the sex trade. Prostitution Alternatives Counselling and Education Society (PACE), a Canadian agency, is thus preparing a brochure and training. “It is a supportive tool that we are offering for our members on their rights with the media,” a PACE spokesperson said. They will be informed on how to deal with requests for interviews and photographs and, in particular, how to say no to both.