United pledge to aid victims

United are UNICEF's official football club in England. Old Trafford executives have discussed ways of donating part of the cash from match programme sales to the emergency funds. The club sell around 30,000 programmes per game.

United, who have a large network of supporters' clubs in the Far East, have also asked the leading charity about how it could use the worldwide popularity of United's players to help a PR campaign for funds.

English football has a massive profile in Thailand and Indonesia, and Scudamore has spent a lot of effort over the last year into selling the Premiership's international broadcasting rights overseas for a figure in excess of £250million.

The current death toll stands at nearly 80,000, making it one of the world's worst natural disasters.

Cricket's world governing body is also coming under pressure to play their part in the aid efforts, particularly since two of the 10 Test nations, Sri Lanka and India, are among the worst affected by the disaster. Former West Indies captain Clive Lloyd has called on the International Cricket Council to set up a relief fund.

He said: "There is a lot of money in cricket. We should try to contribute."

Australia have already donated their £10,000 prize money for winning the Second Test against Pakistan to a fund for the tsunami victims.

The ICC have already backed a Cricket Australia proposal to schedule a day in the next few weeks when fundraising matches around the world could be played.