title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: In July 2007, Hong Kong-based businessman Carson Yeung bought 29.9% of shares in the club, making him the biggest single shareholder, with a view to taking full control in the future. Uncertain as to his future under possible new owners, Bruce left in mid-season. His successor, Scotland national team manager Alex McLeish, was unable to stave off relegation, but achieved promotion back to the Premier League at the first attempt. Yeung's company completed the takeover in 2009, and the team finished in ninth place, their highest for 51 years. In 2011, they combined a second League Cup, defeating favourites Arsenal 2–1 with goals from Nikola Žigić and Obafemi Martins and securing qualification for the Europa League, with relegation back to the second tier, after which McLeish resigned to join Aston Villa.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: Birmingham narrowly failed to reach the knockout rounds of the Europa League and the play-off final. With the club in financial turmoil and under a transfer embargo, manager Chris Hughton left. Under Lee Clark, Birmingham twice retained their divisional status, albeit through Paul Caddis's 93rd-minute goal in the last match of 2013–14 to avoid relegation on goal difference, but continued poor form saw him dismissed in October 2014. Gary Rowett stabilised the team and led them to two tenth-place finishes before being controversially dismissed by new owners Trillion Trophy Asia in favour of the "pedigree" of Gianfranco Zola, who would aid the club's "strategic, long-term view" to take the club in a new direction.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: Two wins from 24 matches under Zola left Birmingham needing two wins from the last three games to stay up, which they achieved under the managership of Harry Redknapp. Redknapp lasted another month, his former assistant Steve Cotterill five months, leaving successor Garry Monk anotherultimately successfulrelegation battle. Despite budgetary restrictions and a nine-point deduction for breaches of the League's Profitability and Sustainability (P&S) rules, the team finished 17th in 2018–19; however, Monk was sacked in June after conflict with the board. He was succeeded by his assistant, Pep Clotet, initially as caretaker. In the 2019–20 season, a season that was suspended from March to June 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the club once again avoided relegation despite a 14-match winless run at the end of the season and the threat of a further points deduction. Academy product Jude Bellingham was sold to Borussia Dortmund in the summer for a club-record deal reported to be worth up to £30 million, after which Aitor Karanka lasted eight months as head coach before being replaced by former Birmingham player Lee Bowyer. After 16 months and yet another relegation struggle, amid rumours of an imminent takeover, Bowyer was replaced by John Eustace.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: The Small Heath Alliance members decided among themselves that their colours would be blue; in the early days, they wore whatever blue shirt they had. The first uniform kit was a dark blue shirt with a white sash and white shorts. Several variations on a blue theme were tried; the one that stuck was the royal blue shirt with a white "V", adopted during the First World War and retained until the late 1920s. Though the design changed, the royal blue remained. In 1971 they adopted the "penguin" striproyal blue with a broad white central front panelwhich lasted five years. Since then they have generally worn plain, nominally royal blue shirts, though the actual shade used has varied. Shorts have been either blue or white, and socks usually blue, white or a combination. White, yellow, red and black, on their own or in combination, have been the most frequently used colours for the away kit.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: There were aberrations: the 1992 kit, sponsored by Triton Showers, was made of a blue material covered with multicoloured splashes which resembled a shower curtain. The home shirt has only once featured stripes: in 1999, the blue shirt had a front central panel in narrow blue and white stripes, a design similar to the Tesco supermarket carrier bag of the time.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: When the club changed its name from Small Heath to Birmingham in 1905 it adopted the city's coat of arms as its badge, although this was not always worn on the shirts. The 1970s "penguin" shirt carried the letters "BCFC" intertwined at the centre of the chest. The "Sports Argus" newspaper ran a competition in 1972 to design a new badge for the club. The winning entry, a line-drawn globe and ball, with a ribbon carrying the club's name and date of foundation, in plain blue and white, was adopted by the club but not worn on playing shirts until 1976, after the design was granted by the College of Arms in 1975. The design recorded at the College did not include the ribbon and was blazoned as "A football ensigned by a terrestrial globe proper". This was granted as an heraldic badge to the English Football League and was licensed to Birmingham City. An experiment was made in the early 1990s with colouring in the globe and ball, but was soon abandoned.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: In June 2020, the club announced a four-year partnership with Nike as supplier of kits, which carry the logo of the club's principal sponsor, Irish bookmaker BoyleSports. The 2022–23 home kit consists of a blue shirt with navy horizontal stripes and white trim, blue shorts and white socks, while the away kit has a red shirt with a navy graphic pattern and trim, red shorts and navy socks.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: The club rarely spends more than three seasons with the same kit supplier. The first sponsor to have its name on the shirt was Birmingham-based brewery Ansells in 1983. They withdrew in mid-1985, and the shirts went unsponsored until January 1987, when Co-op Milk paid a "five-figure sum" to have its name displayed until the end of the season, which was a relief to the club not only financially; the vice-chairman claimed that as a "big club ... people expect us to have a shirt sponsor and we have been lagging behind". Later sponsors included car retailer PJ Evans/Evans Halshaw (1988–1989), Mark One (1989–1992), Triton Showers (1992–1995), Auto Windscreens (1995–2001), Phones 4u (2001–2003), Flybe (2003–2007), F&C Investments (2007–2011), foreign exchange company RationalFX (2011–2012), "lifestyle and leisure" business EZE Group (2012–2013 and 2015–2016), e-cigarette company Nicolites (2013–2014), mobile payment enabler Zapaygo (2014–2015), and 888sport (2016–2019).


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: Small Heath Alliance played their first home games on waste ground off Arthur Street, Bordesley Green. As interest grew, they moved to a fenced-off field in Ladypool Road, Sparkbrook, where admission could be charged. A year later, they moved again, to a field adjoining Muntz Street, Small Heath, near the main Coventry Road, with a capacity of about 10,000. The Muntz Street ground was adequate for 1880s friendly matches, and the capacity was gradually raised to around 30,000, but when several thousand spectators scaled walls and broke down turnstiles to get into a First Division match against Aston Villa, it became clear that it could no longer cope with the demand.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: Director Harry Morris identified a site for a new ground in Bordesley Green, some three-quarters of a mile (1 km) from Muntz Street towards the city centre. The site was where a brickworks once operated; the land sloped steeply down to stagnant pools, yet the stadium was constructed in under twelve months from land clearance to opening ceremony on Boxing Day 1906. Heavy snow nearly prevented the opening; volunteers had to clear pitch and terraces before the match, a goalless draw against Middlesbrough, could go ahead. The ground is reputed to have been cursed by gypsies evicted from the site; although gypsies are known to have camped nearby, there is no contemporary evidence for their eviction by the club.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: The original capacity of St Andrew's was reported as 75,000, with 4,000 seats in the Main Stand and space for 22,000 under cover. By 1938 the official capacity was 68,000, and February 1939 saw the attendance record set at the fifth round FA Cup tie against Everton, variously recorded as 66,844 or 67,341. On the outbreak of the Second World War, the Chief Constable ordered the ground's closure because of the danger from air raids; it was the only ground to be thus closed, and was only re-opened after the matter was raised in Parliament. It was badly damaged during the Birmingham Blitz: the Railway End and the Kop as a result of bombing, while the Main Stand burnt down when a fireman mistook petrol for water.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: The replacement Main Stand used a propped cantilever roof design, which meant fewer pillars to block spectators' view of the pitch. Floodlights were installed in 1956, and officially switched on for a friendly match against Borussia Dortmund in 1957. By the early 1960s a stand had been built at the Railway End to the same design as the Main Stand, roofs had been put on the Kop and Tilton Road End, and the ground capacity was down to about 55,000.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: Resulting from the 1986 Popplewell Report into the safety of sports grounds and the later Taylor Report, the capacity of St Andrew's was set at 28,235 for safety reasons, but it was accepted that the stadium had to be brought up to modern all-seated standards. After the last home game of the 1993–94 season, the Kop and Tilton Road terraces were demolishedfans took home a significant proportion as souvenirsto be replaced at the start of the new season by a 7,000-seat Tilton Road Stand, continuing round the corner into the 9,500-seat Kop which opened two months later. The 8,000-seat Railway Stand followed in 1999; ten years later, this was renamed the Gil Merrick Stand, in honour of the club's appearance record-holder and former manager, but the Main Stand has still to be modernised. In 2019, the club website listed the stadium capacity as 29,409.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: In 2004 a proposal was put forward to build a "sports village" comprising a 55,000-capacity City of Birmingham Stadium, other sports and leisure facilities, and a super casino, to be jointly financed by Birmingham City Council, Birmingham City F.C. (via the proceeds of the sale of St Andrew's) and the casino group Las Vegas Sands. The feasibility of the plan depended on the government issuing a licence for a super casino, and Birmingham being chosen as the venue, but this did not happen. The club have planning permission to redevelop the Main Stand, but club and council continued to seek alternative sources of funding for the City of Birmingham Stadium project.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: In 2013, the Birmingham City Supporters' Trust's application for listing St Andrew's as an Asset of Community Value (ACV)a building or other land whose main use "furthers the social wellbeing or social interests of the local community" and where it is realistic to believe it could do so in the future.under the Localism Act 2011 was approved by Birmingham City Council. This requires any proposed sale to be notified to the Council, and provides for a six-month moratorium on that sale to allow the Trust and other community groups to submit their own bid. In 2018, the club's owners agreed a three-year sponsorship deal under which the name became St Andrew's Trillion Trophy Stadium.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: Birmingham fans consider their main rivals to be Aston Villa, their nearest neighbours geographically, with whom they contest the Second City derby. Lesser rivalries include fellow West Midlands clubs Wolverhampton Wanderers and West Bromwich Albion. According to a 2003 Football Fans Census survey, Aston Villa fans thought of Birmingham City as their main rivals, though this was not always the case.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: Birmingham's supporters are generally referred to as "Bluenoses" in the media and by the fans themselves; the name is also used in a derogatory manner by fans of other clubs. A piece of public sculpture in the form of a ten-times-life-size head lying on a mound near the St Andrew's ground, Ondré Nowakowski's "Sleeping Iron Giant", has been repeatedly defaced with blue paint on its nose. Between 1994 and 1997, the club mascot took the form of a blue nose, though it is now a dog named "Beau Brummie", a play on the name Beau Brummell and Brummie, the slang word for a person from Birmingham.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: A number of supporters' clubs are affiliated to the football club, both in England and abroad. An action group was formed in 1991 to protest against chairman Samesh Kumar, the club blamed an internet petition for the collapse of the purchase of player Lee Bowyer in 2005, and antipathy towards the board provoked hostile chanting and a pitch invasion after the last match of the 2007–08 season, but when the club was in financial difficulties, supporters contributed to schemes which funded the purchase of players Brian Roberts in 1984 and Paul Peschisolido in 1992. A supporters' trust was formed under the auspices of Supporters Direct in 2012.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: There have been several fanzines published by supporters. "Made in Brum", first issued in 2000, was the only one regularly on sale in 2013. The "Zulu" began some years earlier and ran for at least 16 seasons. The hooligan firm associated with the club, the Zulu Warriors, were unusual in that they had multi-racial membership at a time when many such firms had associations with racist or right-wing groups.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: The fans' anthem, an adaptation of Harry Lauder's "Keep Right On to the End of the Road", was adopted during the 1956 FA Cup campaign. "The Times" football correspondent described in his Cup Final preview how Player Alex Govan is credited with popularising the song, by singing it on the coach on the way to the quarter-final and when he revealed in an interview that it was his favourite.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: Small Heath F.C. became a limited company in 1888; its first share issue was to the value of £650. The board was made up of local businessmen and dignitaries until 1965, when the club was sold to Clifford Coombs. By the mid-1980s the club was in financial trouble. Control passed from the Coombs family to former Walsall F.C. chairman Ken Wheldon, who cut costs, made redundancies, and sold off assets, including the club's training ground. Still unable to make the club pay, Wheldon sold it to the Kumar brothers, owners of a clothing chain. Debt was still increasing when matters came to a head; the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) put the Kumars' businesses into receivership. The club continued in administration for four months until Sport Newspapers' proprietor David Sullivan bought the Kumars' 84% holding for £700,000 from BCCI's liquidator in March 1993. Birmingham City plc, of which the football club was a wholly owned subsidiary, was floated on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in 1997 with an issue of 15 million new shares, raising £7.5 million of new investment. It made a pre-tax profit of £4.3M in the year ending 31 August 2008.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: In July 2007, Hong Kong businessman Carson Yeung, via the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (SEHK)-listed company Grandtop International Holdings Limited (GIH), bought 29.9% of the plc from its directors. Although his intention to take full control of the club initially came to nothing, GIH completed the purchase in October 2009 at a total cost of £81.5M, re-registered the club as a private company, and renamed the holding company Birmingham International Holdings (BIH).


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: Trading in BIH shares was suspended in June 2011 after Yeung's arrest on charges of money-laundering. Publication of financial results was repeatedly delayed, which led the Football League to impose a transfer embargo, and offers for the club were entertained from 2012 onwards. After Yeung resigned his positions with both club and company in early 2014, share trading resumed, and following his conviction, efforts intensified to dispose of the club, which had to be done piecemeal in order to retain BIH's share listing.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: Going into 2015, the Football League made public their concerns over Yeung's attempts to impose his choice of directors on the BIHL board despite his conviction disqualifying him from exerting influence over a club. Relationships became increasingly factional, as illustrated by the failure of three directors, including the club's "de facto" chief executive Panos Pavlakis, to gain re-election, followed the next day by their reinstatement. On 17 February, the board voluntarily appointed receivers from accountants Ernst & Young to take over management of the company. Their statement stressed that no winding-up petition had been issued and the company was not in liquidation.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: In June 2015, the receivers struck deals with the previous major shareholders such that legal action against them would be dropped in return for their agreement not to obstruct any transfer of ownership to their preferred bidder, the British Virgin Islands-registered investment vehicle Trillion Trophy Asia (TTA), wholly owned by Chinese businessman Paul Suen Cho Hung, who in turn agreed that the company would not be sold on within two years. The process completed in October 2016, leaving TTA owning 50.64% of BIH's share capital, a level of ownership that required them to make an offer for the remainder.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: Birmingham achieved their highest finishing position, of sixth in the top flight, in the 1955–56 First Division. Frank Womack holds the record for Birmingham league appearances, having played 491 matches between 1908 and 1928, closely followed by Gil Merrick with 485 between 1946 and 1959. If all senior competitions are included, Merrick has 551, less closely followed by Womack's 515 which is the record for an outfield player. The player who won most international caps while at the club is Maik Taylor with 58 for Northern Ireland.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: The goalscoring record is held by Joe Bradford, with 249 league goals, 267 altogether, scored between 1920 and 1935; no other player comes close. Walter Abbott holds the records for the most goals scored in a season, in 1898–99, with 34 league goals in the Second Division and 42 goals in total.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: The club's widest victory margin in the league was 12–0, a scoreline which they achieved once in the Football Alliance, against Nottingham Forest in 1899, and twice in the Second Division, against Walsall Town Swifts in 1892 and Doncaster Rovers in 1903. They have lost a league match by an eight-goal margin on eight occasions: twice in the Football Alliance and five times in the First Division, all away from home, and once at home, beaten 8–0 by AFC Bournemouth in the Championship in 2014. Their record FA Cup win was 10–0 against Druids in the fourth qualifying round of the 1899 competition; their record FA Cup defeat was 7–0 at home to Liverpool in the 2006 quarter-final.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: Birmingham's home attendance record was set at the fifth-round FA Cup tie against Everton on 11 February 1939. It is variously recorded as 66,844 or 67,341. The highest transfer fee received for a Birmingham player is, according to the "Sky Sports" website, "a guaranteed £25 million up front" received in July 2020 from Borussia Dortmund for Jude Bellingham, which made him the most expensive 17-year-old in world football; the deal also included add-ons "worth 'several millions more'". The highest fee paid is £6.3m for Croatian midfielder Ivan Šunjić, who joined from Dinamo Zagreb in July 2019.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: In appreciation of Jude Bellingham's contribution in a short time with the first teamthe club's youngest debutant, at 16 years and 38 days, and youngest goalscorer, he completed a full season in the Championship before becoming Birmingham's record transfer and the world's most expensive 17-year-old, "showing what can be achieved through talent, hard work and dedication" while retaining a "caring, humble and engaging off-the-field demeanour"the club retired his number 22 shirt "to remember one of our own and to inspire others."


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: Birmingham City Ladies Football Club was formed in 1968. The first team worked their way through the leagues until promoted to the FA Women's Premier League in 2002. After Birmingham City F.C. withdrew financial support in 2005, the club were only able to continue because of a personal donation. They re-affiliated with Birmingham City in 2010, were founder members of the FA WSL the following year, and won the FA Women's Cup in 2012. A second-place finish in the 2012 FA WSL earned them qualification for the 2013–14 Champions League, in which they reached the semi-final. After TTA took over Birmingham City F.C. in November 2016, the women's club became an integral part of the organisation. It was formally renamed Birmingham City Women in 2018, and would be known as plain Birmingham City except where that would cause confusion with the men's team.


title: Birmingham City F.C.

text: Gil Merrick was the first Birmingham manager to win a major trophy, the League Cup in 1963. Merrick also led the club to the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup final in 1961, following Pat Beasley who had done the same in 1960. Leslie Knighton took the club to the final of the FA Cup in 1931; Arthur Turner did likewise in 1956, as well as taking charge of the club's highest league finish, sixth place in the 1955–56 First Division. Birmingham reached the 2001 Football League Cup Final under Trevor Francis, whose successor as permanent manager, Steve Bruce, twice achieved promotion to the Premier League. Birmingham won the League Cup for the second time under Alex McLeish in 2011. The 1966 World Cup-winning manager, Sir Alf Ramsey, took charge of the club briefly in 1977.


title: Vodafone

text: Vodafone Group plc () is a British multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates services in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania.


title: Vodafone

text: , Vodafone owns and operates networks in 22 countries, with partner networks in 48 further countries. Its Vodafone Global Enterprise division provides telecommunications and IT services to corporate clients in 150 countries.


title: Vodafone

text: Vodafone has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. The company has a secondary listing on Nasdaq.


title: Vodafone

text: The name Vodafone comes from "VO"ice "DA"ta "FONE" (the latter a sensational spelling of "phone"), chosen by the company to "reflect the provision of voice and data services over mobile phones".


title: Vodafone

text: The evolution of Vodafone started in 1981 with the establishment of the Racal Strategic Radio Ltd subsidiary of Racal Electronics, the UK's largest maker of military radio technology, which formed a joint venture with Millicom called 'Racal', which evolved into the present Vodafone.


title: Vodafone

text: In 1980, Ernest Harrison, the then chairman of Racal Electronics, agreed to a deal with Lord Weinstock of the General Electric Company to allow Racal to access some of GEC's tactical battlefield radio technology. The head of Racal's military radio division, Gerry Whent, was briefed by Ernest Harrison to drive the company into commercial mobile radio. Whent visited a mobile radio factory run by General Electric (unrelated to GEC) in Virginia, US, the same year to understand the commercial use of military radio technology.


title: Vodafone

text: Jan Stenbeck, head of a growing Swedish conglomerate, set up an American company, Millicom Inc, and approached Gerry Whent in July 1982 about bidding jointly for the UK's second cellular radio licence. The two struck a deal giving Racal 60% of the new company, Racal-Millicom Ltd, and Millicom 40%. Due to concerns of the British government about foreign ownership, the terms were revised, and in December 1982, the Racal-Millicom partnership was awarded the second UK mobile phone network licence. Final ownership of Racal-Millicom Ltd was 80% Racal, with Millicom holding 15% plus royalties, and the venture firm Hambros Technology Trust holding 5%. According to the UK Secretary of State for Industry, "the bid submitted by Racal-Millicom Ltd … provided the best prospect for early national coverage by cellular radio."


title: Vodafone

text: Vodafone was launched on 1 January 1985 under the new name of Racal-Vodafone (Holdings) Ltd, with its first office based in the Courtyard in Newbury, Berkshire, and shortly thereafter Racal Strategic Radio was renamed Racal Telecommunications Group Limited. The first non-Vodafone employee to make a UK mobile phone call was comedian Ernie Wise, from St Katharine Docks, London on 1 January 1985. On 29 December 1986, Racal Electronics issued shares to the minority shareholders of Vodafone worth £110 million, and Vodafone became a fully owned brand of Racal.


title: Vodafone

text: On 26 October 1988, Racal Telecom, majority held by Racal Electronics, went public on the London Stock Exchange with 20% of its stock floated. The successful flotation led to a situation where Racal's stake in Racal Telecom was valued more than the whole of Racal Electronics. Under stock market pressure to realise full value for shareholders, Racal demerged Racal Telecom in 1991.


title: Vodafone

text: On 16 September 1991, Racal Telecom was demerged from Racal Electronics as Vodafone Group, with Gerry Whent as its CEO.


title: Vodafone

text: In July 1996, Vodafone acquired the two-thirds of Talkland it did not already own for £30.6 million. On 19 November 1996, in a defensive move, Vodafone purchased for £77 million Peoples Phone, a 181-store chain whose customers were overwhelmingly using Vodafone's network. In a similar move the company acquired the 80% that it did not already own of Astec Communications, a service provider with 21 stores.


title: Vodafone

text: In January 1997, Whent retired and Chris Gent took over as CEO. In the same year, Vodafone introduced its "Speechmark" logo, composed of a quotation mark in a circle, with the Os in the Vodafone logotype representing opening and closing quotation marks and suggesting conversation.


title: Vodafone

text: On 29 June 1999, Vodafone completed its purchase of American service provider AirTouch Communications, Inc. and changed its name to Vodafone Airtouch plc. The merged company commenced trading on 30 June 1999. The acquisition gave Vodafone a 35% share of Mannesmann, owner of the largest German mobile network. To gain antitrust approval for the merger, Vodafone sold its 17.2% stake in Mannesmann's German competitor, E-Plus Mobilfunk.


title: Vodafone

text: On 21 September 1999, Vodafone agreed to merge its US wireless assets with those of Bell Atlantic Corp to form Verizon Wireless. The merger was completed on 4 April 2000, just a few months prior to Bell Atlantic's merger with GTE to form Verizon Communications, Inc.


title: Vodafone

text: In November 1999, Vodafone made an unsolicited bid for Mannesmann, which was rejected. Vodafone's interest in Mannesmann had been increased by the latter's purchase of Orange, the UK mobile operator. Gent would later say Mannesmann's move into the UK broke a "gentleman's agreement" not to compete in each other's home territory. The hostile takeover provoked strong protest in Germany, and a "titanic struggle" which saw Mannesmann resist Vodafone's efforts. However, on 3 February 2000, the Mannesmann board agreed to an increased offer of £112 billion, then the largest corporate merger ever. The EU approved the merger in April 2000 after Vodafone agreed to divest the 'Orange' brand, which was acquired in May 2000 by France Télécom.


title: Vodafone

text: On 17 December 2001, Vodafone introduced the concept of "Partner Networks", by signing TDC Mobil of Denmark. The new concept involved the introduction of Vodafone international services to the local market, without the need of investment by Vodafone. The concept would be used to extend the Vodafone brand and services into markets where it did not have stakes in local operators. Vodafone services would be marketed under the dual-brand scheme, where the Vodafone brand is added at the end of the local brand. (i.e., TDC Mobil-Vodafone etc.)


title: Vodafone

text: Vodafone sponsored the Premier League team Manchester United F.C. in football from 2000 until the 2005-06 season.


title: Vodafone

text: In 2007, Vodafone entered into a title sponsorship deal with the McLaren Formula One team (previously Vodafone sponsored Scuderia Ferrari in 2002 until 2006), which traded as "Vodafone McLaren Mercedes" until the sponsorship ended at the end of the 2013 season.


title: Vodafone

text: On 1 December 2011, it acquired the Reading-based Bluefish Communications Ltd, an ICT consultancy company. The acquired operations formed the nucleus of a new Unified Communications and Collaboration practice within its subsidiary Vodafone Global Enterprise, which was to focus on implementing strategies in cloud computing, and strengthen its professional services offering.


title: Vodafone

text: In April 2012, Vodafone announced an agreement to acquire Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CWW) for £1.04 billion. The acquisition gave Vodafone access to CWW's fibre network for businesses, enabling it to offer unified communications to enterprises. On 18 June 2012, Cable & Wireless' shareholders voted in favour of the Vodafone offer.


title: Vodafone

text: On 2 September 2013, Vodafone announced it would be selling its 45% stake in Verizon Wireless to Verizon Communications for $US130 billion. With the proceeds from the deal, it announced a £19 billion Project Spring initiative to improve network quality in Europe and emerging markets, such as India.


title: Vodafone

text: In June 2017, the company took measures to prevent its advertising from appearing within outlets focused on creating and sharing hate speech and fake news.


title: Vodafone

text: In January 2020, Vodafone confirmed that it has pulled out of Diem Association (known as Libra Association at the time), the governing council for the Facebook-created global digital currency initiative.


title: Vodafone

text: Following a period of worldwide expansion which began in 1999, in the 2010s Vodafone entered a period of retrenchment and simplification of its operations. Its operating companies are in Europe, Africa, India and Turkey, while in other continents and countries it has partner agreements with local network operators.


title: Vodafone

text: In November 1998, the Vodafone Egypt network went live under the name Click GSM, and was rebranded to Vodafone in 2002.


title: Vodafone

text: On 8 November 2006, the company announced a deal with Telecom Egypt, resulting in further co-operation in the Egyptian market and increasing its stake in Vodafone Egypt. After the deal, Vodafone Egypt was 55% owned by the group, while the remaining 45% was owned by Telecom Egypt.


title: Vodafone

text: On 29 January 2020, Saudi Telecom Company (STC) and the Vodafone Group signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the sale of Vodafone's entire 55 percent stake in Vodafone Egypt to STC. With the sale, Vodafone will be exiting Egypt (as a telecom operator) as the rest of the 45 percent stake in Vodafone Egypt is owned by Telecom Egypt. Telecom Egypt has said that it has no plans to sell its stake.


title: Vodafone

text: On 21 December 2020, Vodafone announced that its discussions with STC regarding the sale of Vodafone's 55% shareholding in Vodafone Egypt have been terminated and that Vodafone would stay in the Egyptian market.


title: Vodafone

text: On 3 November 2004, the company announced that its South African affiliate Vodacom had agreed to introduce Vodafone's international services, such as Vodafone live! and partner agreements, to its local market.


title: Vodafone

text: In November 2005, Vodafone announced that it was in exclusive talks to buy a 15% stake of VenFin in Vodacom Group, reaching agreement the following day. Vodafone and Telkom then had a 50% stake each in Vodacom. Vodafone now owns 57.5% of Vodacom after purchasing a 15% stake from Telkom.


title: Vodafone

text: On 9 October 2008, the company offered to acquire an additional 15% stake in Vodacom Group from Telkom. The finalised details of the agreement were announced on 6 November 2008. The agreement called for Telkom to sell 15 per cent of its 50 per cent stake in Vodacom to the group, and demerge the other 35 per cent to its shareholder. Meanwhile, Vodafone has agreed to make Vodacom its exclusive sub-Saharan Africa investment vehicle, as well as continuing to maintain the visibility of the Vodacom brand. The transaction closed in May/June 2009.


title: Vodafone

text: On 18 May 2009, Vodacom entered the JSE Limited stock exchange in South Africa after Vodafone increased its stake by 15% to 65% to take a majority holding, despite disputes by local trade unions.


title: Vodafone

text: On 3 July 2008, Vodafone agreed to acquire a 70% stake in Ghana Telecom for $900 million. The acquisition was consummated on 17 August 2008. The same group-led consortium won the second fixed-line licence in Qatar on 15 September 2008.


title: Vodafone

text: On 15 April 2009, Ghana Telecom, along with its mobile subsidiary OneTouch, was rebranded as Vodafone Ghana.


title: Vodafone

text: On 24 February 2010, the group signed a partner network agreement with the second-largest operator in Libya, al Madar.


title: Vodafone

text: On 23 September 2016, Vodafone extended its activities to Cameroon by signing a partnership with Afrimax, a 4G-LTE telecommunications operator in Africa. Vodafone Cameroon Launched a "Youth Program" in the Universities to support and encourage the Cameroonian students. The partnership ceased to operate in September 2017 following the withdrawal of its license by the government.


title: Vodafone

text: On 29 December 2003, Vodafone signed a Partner Network Agreement with Kuwait's MTC group. The agreement involved co-operation in Bahrain and the branding of the network as MTC-Vodafone.


title: Vodafone

text: In December 2007, a Vodafone Group-led consortium was awarded the second mobile phone licence in Qatar under the name "Vodafone Qatar". Vodafone Qatar is located at QSTP, the Qatar Science & Technology Park. Commercial operations officially began on 1 March 2009. In February 2018 Vodafone Europe agreed to sell their stake in the Qatar joint venture.


title: Vodafone

text: On 25 November 2019, Vodafone in collaboration with Inseego Corp. introduced the 5G MiFi M1100 in Qatar. It is the first commercially available 5G mobile hotspot in the region.


title: Vodafone

text: On 28 January 2009, the group announced a partner network agreement with Du, the second-largest operator in the United Arab Emirates. The agreement involved co-operation on international clients, handset procurement, mobile broadband etc.


title: Vodafone

text: In January 2021, Vodafone obtained a license to establish and operate public telecommunications services in Oman. In September 2021 Vodafone in Oman signed an agreement with Ericsson to deploy, operate and maintain 4G and 5G core and radio access (RAN) greenfield network and an agreement with Netcracker Technology to deploy Netcracker Digital BSS. Vodafone will be the third operator in the Sultanate of Oman.


title: Vodafone

text: On 11 May 2008, Vodafone sealed a trade agreement with the Chilean Entel PCS Chile, in which Entel PCS has access to the equipment and international services of Vodafone, and Vodafone will be one of the trademarks of Entel for the wireless business. This step will give the Vodafone brand access to a market of over 15 million people, currently divided among two companies: Telefonica Movistar, and Entel PCS.


title: Vodafone

text: In the United States, Vodafone previously owned 45% of Verizon Wireless in a joint venture with Verizon Communications, the country's largest mobile carrier. Vodafone branding was not used, however, as the CDMA network was not compatible with the GSM 900/1800 MHz standard used by Vodafone's other networks and as Vodafone did not have management control over Verizon Wireless. On 2 September 2013 Vodafone announced the sale of its stake to Verizon Communications for around $130 billion. In 2004, Vodafone made an unsuccessful bid for the entirety of AT&T Wireless; however, Cingular Wireless, at the time a joint venture of SBC Communications and BellSouth (both now part of AT&T Inc.), ultimately outbid Vodafone and took control of AT&T Wireless (the combined wireless carrier is now AT&T Mobility).


title: Vodafone

text: In 1999, J-Phone launched the J-sky mobile Internet service in response to DoCoMo's i-Mode service. It became Japan's third-largest mobile operator and was the first one to introduce camera phones in Japan. Vodafone then went on to acquire J-phone. In December 2002 J-Phone's 3G network went live. On 1 October 2003, J-Phone became 'Vodafone Japan', and J-Phone's mobile internet service J-Sky became Vodafone Live!. In March 2006, Vodafone sold Vodafone Japan to SoftBank. In October 2006, SoftBank changed Vodafone Japan's name to 'SoftBank Mobile'. On 17 March 2006, Vodafone announced an agreement to sell all its interest in Vodafone Japan to SoftBank for £8.9 billion, of which £6.8 billion would be received in cash upon completion of the deal. Vodafone Japan later changed its name to SoftBank Mobile. In November 2010, Vodafone divested its remaining Softbank shares.


title: Vodafone

text: On 28 October 2005, the company announced the acquisition of a 10 per cent stake in India's Bharti Enterprises, which operated the largest mobile phone network in India under the brand name "Airtel". Then on 11 February 2007, the Company agreed to acquire a controlling interest of 67% in Hutch Essar for US$11.1 billion. At the same time, it agreed to sell back 5.6% of its "Airtel" stake to the Mittals; Vodafone would retain a 4.4% stake in "Airtel". On 21 September 2007, Hutch was rebranded to Vodafone India. In May 2011, Vodafone Group Plc bought the remaining shares of Vodafone Essar from Essar Group Ltd for $5 billion. In October 2013, it was reported by Reuters that Vodafone planned to invest as much as $2 billion (£1.2 billion) to buy out minority shareholders in Vodafone India.


title: Vodafone

text: By late January 2017, Vodafone Group's unit in India and Idea Cellular Ltd were in preliminary talks to merge. And on 20 March 2017, Vodafone announced that it was merging its Indian business with Idea, India's third-largest network, to create the country's third largest operator with almost 270 million customers, accounting for 16% of the Indian cellphone service market. Vodafone would own 45.1 percent of the new operator and Idea's parent company, the Aditya Birla Group, 26 percent. The deal valued Vodafone India at the equivalent of $12.6 billion and Idea Cellular at the equivalent of $11.02 billion. The deal would enable Vodafone to move its Indian subsidiary off its balance sheet, cutting the British group's net debt by the equivalent of almost $8.25 billion. The Telecom ministry (DoT) cleared the Vodofone–Idea merger on 9 July 2018. On 31 August 2018, Vodafone Idea became a legal entity and the largest telecom service provider in India. On 7 September 2020, Vodafone Idea unveiled its new brand identity, 'Vi' which involves the integration of the company's erstwhile separate brands 'Vodafone' and 'Idea' into one unified brand.


title: Vodafone

text: On 3 November 2003, Singapore became a part of the community as M1 was signed as partner network. Then in April 2005, SmarTone changed the name of its brand to 'SmarTone-Vodafone', after both companies signed a Partner Network Agreement. In January 2006, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka were added to the Vodafone footprint as Vodafone Group signed a partner network agreement with Telekom Malaysia.


title: Vodafone

text: On 6 February 2007, along with the partnership with Digicel Caribbean (see below), Samoa was added as a Partner Market. On 6 February 2007, Vodafone Group signed a three-year partnership agreement with Digicel Group. The agreement, which includes Digicel's sister operation in Samoa, will result to the offering of new roaming capabilities. The two groups will also become preferred roaming partners of each other.


title: Vodafone

text: On 10 February 2008, Vodafone announced the launching of M-Paisa mobile money transfer service on Roshan's (Afghanistan's largest GSM operator) network: Afghanistan was added to the Vodafone footprint.


title: Vodafone

text: Nar Mobile in Azerbaijan was signed as a partner network on 22 July 2009, while Chunghwa Telecom of Taiwan was signed on 12 November 2009.


title: Vodafone

text: In September 2011, it was announced that Vodafone and Smartone would not renew their partnership in the Hong Kong market. Vodafone instead entered into an agreement with Hutchison Telecom, who operate the "3" brand. In the same year, M1 also ended their partnership in Singapore.


title: Vodafone

text: In February 2013, Vodafone together with China Mobile participated in bidding for one of the two newly opened Myanmar Mobile licences.


title: Vodafone

text: At the beginning of September 2014, the Vietnamese mobile operator Vinaphone signed a strategic co-operation agreement with Vodafone.


title: Vodafone

text: Vodafone Hungary was formed as a subsidiary company in July 1999. The acquisition of Mannesmann AG, completed on 12 April 2000, created subsidiaries in Germany and Italy, and increased the Group's indirect holding in SFR. The Vodafone brand in Italy was introduced as Omnitel-Vodafone in 2001, which became the primary brand in 2002; finally the current name Vodafone Italia was introduced in 2003, dropping "Omnitel" altogether.


title: Vodafone

text: In 2001, the company acquired Eircell, the largest wireless communications company in Ireland, from Eircom. Eircell was subsequently rebranded as Vodafone Ireland. In February 2002, Radiolinja of Finland joined Vodafone as a partner network. Later in December 2002, the Vodafone brand was introduced in the Estonian market following the signing of a Partner Network Agreement with the Estonian subsidiary of Radiolinja. Radiolinja's Finnish service was rebranded as Elisa in April 2004 following its parent company Elisa Corporation's decision to unify all consumer-facing brands under a single name; this was followed by Radiolinja's Estonian service in February 2005 in anticipation of the later juridical merger with .


title: Vodafone

text: In January 2003, the company signed a group-wide partner agreement with mobilkom Austria and as a result Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia were added to the community. In April 2003, Og Vodafone was introduced in the Icelandic market. On 21 July 2003, Lithuania was added to the community, with the signing of a Partner Network Agreement with Bitė.


title: Vodafone

text: In February 2004, Vodafone signed Partner Network Agreements with Luxembourg's LuxGSM, and with Cyta of Cyprus. Cyta agreed to rename its mobile phone operations to Cytamobile-Vodafone. In April 2004, the company acquired a British airtime provider, Singlepoint, for £405m from John Caudwell's Caudwell Group, adding approximately 1.5 million customers and sites in Stoke-on-Trent to existing sites in Newbury (HQ), Birmingham, Warrington and Banbury. In November 2004, Vodafone introduced 3G services into Europe.


title: Vodafone

text: In June 2005, the Company bought the Czech mobile operator Oskar which was rebranded as Oskar-Vodafone.


title: Vodafone

text: On 28 October 2005, Connex in Romania was rebranded as Connex-Vodafone, and on 31 October 2005, the company reached an agreement to sell Vodafone Sweden to Telenor for approximately €1 billion. After the sale, Vodafone Sweden became a partner network.


title: Vodafone

text: In December 2005, Vodafone won an auction to buy Turkey's second-largest mobile phone company, Telsim, for US$4.5 billion. Early in January 2007, Telsim in Turkey adopted Vodafone dual branding as Telsim Vodafone, and on 1 April 2007, became Vodafone Turkey. In addition, Vodafone Turkey also provides service in Northern Cyprus.


title: Vodafone

text: In 2006, the Company rebranded its Stoke-on-Trent site as Stoke Premier Centre, a "centre of expertise" for the company dealing with customer care for its higher-value customers, technical support, sales and credit control. On 22 February 2006, the company announced that it was extending its footprint to Bulgaria with the signing of Partner Network Agreement with Mobiltel, which is part of the mobilkom Austria group.


title: Vodafone

text: In April 2006, the company announced that it had signed an extension to its Partner Network Agreement with Bitė Group, enabling its Latvian subsidiary to become the latest member of Vodafone's global partner community. On 30 May 2006, Vodafone announced the then-biggest loss in British corporate history (£14.9 billion), and plans to cut 400 jobs; it reported one-off costs of £23.5 billion due to the revaluation of its Mannesmann subsidiary. On 24 July 2006, the respected head of Vodafone Europe, Bill Morrow, quit unexpectedly, and on 25 August 2006, the company announced the sale of its 25% stake in Belgium's Proximus for €2 billion. After the deal, Proximus remained part of the community as a Partner Network.


title: Vodafone

text: On 5 October 2006, Vodafone announced the first single-brand partnership with Og Vodafone which would operate under the name Vodafone Iceland, and on 19 December 2006, the company announced the sale of its 25% stake in Switzerland's Swisscom for CHF4.25 billion (£1.8 billion). After the deal, Swisscom would still be part of the community as a Partner Network. In December 2006, the Company completed the acquisition of Aspective, an enterprise applications systems integrator in the UK, signalling Vodafone's intent to grow a significant presence and revenues in the information and communication technologies (ICT) marketplace.


title: Vodafone

text: On 1 May 2007, Vodafone added Jersey and Guernsey to the community, as Airtel was signed as Partner Network in both crown dependencies. In June 2007, Vodafone UK began optimising web pages accessed through Vodafone Live!, which was criticised by "The Register" for interfering with mobile commerce websites. On 1 August 2007, Vodafone Portugal launched Vodafone Messenger, a service with Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger. At the end of 2007, Vodafone Germany was ranked 6th in Europe by subscriber numbers, whilst its Italian operation was listed as 10th. Vodafone UK was ranked 13th, whilst Spain was listed in 16th place.


title: Vodafone

text: On 17 April 2008, Vodafone extended its footprint to Serbia as Vip mobile was added to the community as a Partner Network, and on 20 May 2008, the Company added VIP Operator as a Partner Network, thereby extending the global footprint to the North Macedonia.


title: Vodafone

text: On 30 October 2008, the company announced a strategic, non-equity partnership with Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) group of Russia. The agreement adds Russia, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan to the group's footprint.


title: Vodafone

text: On 20 March 2009, it was announced that the group's Luxembourg partner has been changed: the agreement with LuxGSM was not renewed in favour of Tango, the Luxembourg unit of another partner network, Belgacom of Belgium.


title: Vodafone

text: On 4 April 2011, Vodafone sold its 44% stake in SFR, the second largest operator in France, to Vivendi for €7.95 billion.


title: Vodafone

text: In March 2013, the Spanish operations of Vodafone signed an agreement with Orange S.A. to co-invest €1 billion in the expansion of Spain's fibre-optic cable broadband network, which would enable Vodafone to reach an additional 6 million customers in Spain by 2017. On 24 June 2013, Vodafone announced it would be buying German cable company Kabel Deutschland. The takeover was valued at €7.7 billion, and was recommended over the bid of rival Liberty Global. In February 2014, Vodafone made an offer to acquire Spain's largest cable operator, ONO, for total consideration, including associated net debt acquired, of €7.2 billion.


title: Vodafone

text: In October 2015, Russia's Mobile TeleSystems and Vodafone expanded their 2008 strategic partnership; this resulted in the rebranding of MTS Ukraine to Vodafone Ukraine.


title: Vodafone

text: On 31 December 2016, Vodafone Group's Dutch operations merged with Liberty Global's Ziggo brand, creating VodafoneZiggo Group Holding B.V.


title: Vodafone

text: In April 2017, Vodafone was rated the worst mobile provider in the UK for the seventh year in succession in a "Which?" survey.


title: Vodafone

text: In 2019, Vodafone Group created a legally separate organisation comprising its European mobile towers. At the same time it was reported that the mobile towers business could be valued at about £10 billion. The mobile towers business was named Vantage Towers on 24 July 2020. Vantage Towers is headquartered in Düsseldorf, Germany with towers infrastructure in Germany, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary, Italy and Ireland comprising a total of 68,000 towers.


title: Vodafone

text: In October 1993, Vodafone Australia's network went live. In December 2004, Vodafone Australia agreed to deploy high-speed MPLS backbone network built by Lucent Worldwide Services using Juniper hardware. In October 2005, it began launching 3G technology in Australia. On 5 September 2008, Vodafone purchased Australia's largest bricks and mortar mobile phone retailer Crazy John's adding 115 retail stores to its local operations.


title: Vodafone

text: On 9 February 2009, Vodafone Australia announced a merger with 3/Hutchison via a joint venture company VHA Pty Ltd, which would offer products under the Vodafone brand. On 19 June 2009, Vodafone-Hutchison Australia (VHA) announced the end of its outsourcing of retail operations. VHA committed to buying back and managing its entire retail operation, including 208 Vodafone-branded retail outlets Australia-wide. This project was slated to be completed by 1 September 2009.


title: Vodafone

text: On 31 August 2009, VHA enabled an extended 900 MHz 3G UMTS network which functions outside their 2,100 MHz 3G network, boosting Vodafone's 3G population coverage from around 8% to around 94% on dual-band 900/2,100 MHz 3G UMTS devices.


title: Vodafone

text: In July 1994, Vodafone Fiji's network went live. In July 2014, Vodafone sold its 49% shareholding of Vodafone Fiji to The Fiji National Provident fund. Under the terms of the deal, Vodafone Fiji retained its branding under a Partner Market Agreement.


title: Vodafone

text: In July 1993, BellSouth New Zealand's network went live. In November 1998, Vodafone purchased BellSouth New Zealand, which later became Vodafone New Zealand. In August 2005, Vodafone launched 3G technology in New Zealand. On 9 October 2006, Vodafone New Zealand bought New Zealand's 3rd largest internet service provider, iHug. In October 2013, Vodafone began its rollout of 4G to provincial New Zealand, with the launch of the system in holiday hotspots around Coromandel. In 2019, Vodafone announced the sale of its New Zealand division to a consortium of investors; while Vodafone New Zealand is now independently owned, it retains a licensing agreement to continue use of the Vodafone name and logo in exchange for fee payments.


title: Vodafone

text: Vodafone Global Enterprise is the business services division, and a wholly owned subsidiary of Vodafone Group. It was established in April 2007 to provide telecommunications and information technology services to large corporations.


title: Vodafone

text: The division offers integrated communications in cloud computing, unified communications and collaboration. Its services include domestic and international voice and data, machine-to-machine services, mobile email, mobile broadband, managed services, mobile payment and mobile recording.


title: Vodafone

text: In December 2011, it acquired the Reading-based Bluefish Communications Ltd, an ICT consultancy company. The acquired operations formed the nucleus of a new Unified Communications and Collaboration practice within VGE, working on cloud computing and professional services.


title: Vodafone

text: Vodafone Global Enterprise operates in over 65 countries, with "Northern Europe" (based in London, United Kingdom), "Central Europe", "Southern Europe and Africa", "Asia Pacific & Sub-Saharan Africa" (based in Singapore) and "Americas" geographical divisions. VGE's major customers include Deutsche Post, The Linde Group, Unilever, and Volkswagen Group.


title: Vodafone

text: In October 2009, it launched Vodafone 360, a new internet service for the mobile, PC and Mac. This was discontinued in December 2011 after disappointing hardware sales. This was after the Director of Internet Services resigned in September 2010 tweeting "5 days before I leave Vodafone. Freedom beckons." In February 2010, Vodafone launched the world's cheapest mobile phone known as Vodafone 150, intended to sell for below $15 (£10) in the developing world. It was initially launched in India, Turkey and eight African countries including Lesotho, Kenya and Ghana.


title: Vodafone

text: In March 2007, Safaricom, which is part owned by Vodafone and the leading mobile communication provider in Kenya, launched mobile payment software developed by Vodafone.


title: Vodafone

text: By February 2008, the M-PESA money transfer system in Kenya had gained 1.6 million customers. By 2011 there were fourteen million M-Pesa accounts by which held 40 percent of the country's savings. Following M-PESA's success in Kenya, Vodafone announced that it was to extend the service to Afghanistan. The service here was launched on the Roshan network under the brand M-Paisa with a different focus to the Kenyan service. M-Paisa was targeted as a vehicle for microfinance institutions' (MFI) loan disbursements and repayments, alongside business-to-business applications such as salary disbursement. The Afghanistan launch was followed in April 2008 by the announcement of further a further launch of M-PESA in Tanzania, South Africa and India.


title: Vodafone

text: In November 2009, Vodafone announced the creation of a new business unit focused on the emerging market (the application of mobile communications and network technologies to healthcare). One of its early success stories is with the Novartis-led "SMS for Life" project in Tanzania, for which Vodafone developed and deployed a text-message based system that enables all of the country's 4,600 public health facilities to report their levels of anti-malarial medications so that stock level data can be viewed centrally in real-time, enabling timely re-supply of stock. During the SMS for Life pilot, which covered 129 health facilities over six months, stock-outs dropped from 26% to 0.8%, saving thousands of lives.


title: Vodafone

text: The Vodafone Foundation is a recognised charity which supports and initiates projects which use mobile technology to benefit the vulnerable, using the slogan "Connecting for Good". They often work in collaboration with other charitable groups. Below are some examples of their initiatives:


title: Vodafone

text: Since 2017, Vodafone's global advertising has used the slogan "The future is exciting. Ready?". The previous slogan, since 2009, was "Power to You".


title: Vodafone

text: Sir Gerald Whent, at that time an Executive with Racal Electronics plc, was responsible for the bid for a UK Cellular Network licence. The Mobile Telecoms division was de-merged, and was floated on the London Stock Exchange in October 1988 and Sir Gerald became Chief Executive of Racal Telecom plc. Over the next few years the company grew to become the UK's market leader, changing its name to Vodafone Group plc in the process.


title: Vodafone

text: Sir Christopher Gent took over as Chief Executive in January 1997, after Sir Gerald's retirement. Gent was responsible for transforming Vodafone from a small UK operator into the global operator, through the merger with the American AirTouch and the takeover of Germany's Mannesmann.


title: Vodafone

text: Arun Sarin was the driving force behind the company's move into emerging markets such as Asia and Africa, through the purchases such as that of Turkish operator Telsim, and a majority stake in Hutchison Essar in India.


title: Vodafone

text: Vodafone reports its results in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Financial performance has been as follows:


title: Vodafone

text: In September 2010, an investigation by "Private Eye" magazine revealed certain details of Vodafone's tax avoidance activities. It was reported that Vodafone routed the acquisition of Mannesmann through a Luxembourg subsidiary, set up to avoid paying tax on the deal, and continued to place its profits in Luxembourg. Following a long legal struggle with HMRC (during which a senior HMRC official, John Connors, switched sides to become head of tax at Vodafone), it was eventually agreed that Vodafone would pay £1.25 billion related to the acquisition. Based on Vodafone's accounts, experts have estimated the potential tax bill written off as a result of the negotiations was over £6 billion.


title: Vodafone

text: The news of this legal tax avoidance sparked angry protests, beginning in October 2010, outside Vodafone shops across the UK, organised under the banner of UK Uncut. The protests caused the closure of various stores across the UK.


title: Vodafone

text: In 2011, "Private Eye" magazine and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism alleged that Vodafone's Swiss branches were run by a single part-time bookkeeper. The report claimed hardly any business was done from there, indicating that the main purpose of the Zug office was tax avoidance. The report claimed the money was borrowed from the Swiss branch of the Luxembourg company, allowing it to take advantage of Luxembourg's laws, which exempts foreign branches of companies from tax, and Swiss laws, which almost completely exempt local branches of foreign companies. According to the expose, this would have otherwise generated a British tax bill of a little over £2 billion. It said Vodafone publishes a single, combined set of accounts for its Luxembourg subsidiaries and their Swiss branches. For the one company, profits worth £1.6 billion were taxed at less than 1% in 2011, and the profits are likely to have been attributed to Switzerland. In its response to these allegations, Vodafone has said the Swiss branch has not been involved in Vodafone's global financing for a number of years. It is, therefore, irrelevant in respect to global financing arrangements.


title: Vodafone

text: Vodafone was also assessed a US$2.5 billion tax over its acquisition of Hutchison Whampoa's Indian assets in 2007, a demand that it contests. In January 2012, the highest Indian court ruled that Vodafone is not liable for taxes and penalties of up to £2.8 billion. However, in February 2016 India's tax department sent Vodafone a renewed tax notice of £1.4bn. Following the siding of the Indian court with Vodafone in 2012, the government changed the law to allow firms to be retrospectively taxed. In September 2020, an international arbitration tribunal sided with Vodafone and ruled that India's efforts to claim past taxes was in violation of fair treatment under the bilateral investment protection pact between India and the Netherlands. India was asked by the tribunal to stop its efforts to claim the tax dues.


title: Vodafone

text: Vodafone was implicated in the violent suppression of pro-democracy protests in Egypt's 2011 demonstrations. On 27 January, Vodafone, responsible for much of Egypt's telecommunication infrastructure, shut off all voice and data services for Egyptian citizens and businesses at the request of the Egyptian Government under Hosni Mubarak. On 28 January 2011, Vodafone complied with Egyptian government instructions to suspend Internet service "in selected areas" during a period of anti-Mubarak protests. The company issued a statement that "Under Egyptian legislation, the authorities have the right to issue such an order and we are obliged to comply with it." Vodafone also received public and media criticism for allowing the authorities to send mass pro-government messages via SMS over their network during the protests. One such message requested that "honest and loyal men" should "confront the traitors and criminals". Vodafone later issued a statement asserting that they had no choice but to allow the messages to be broadcast, and that they had complained to the Egyptian authorities about the practice. "The Daily Telegraph" of the UK reported, "The Egyptian government's action is unprecedented in the history of the internet." US-based Internet intelligence firm Renesys stated, "in an action unprecedented in Internet history, the Egyptian government appears to have ordered service providers to shut down all international connections to the Internet." Vodafone Group CEO Vittorio Colao said the company was obliged by law to comply with the instructions of the Egyptian government. At the company's annual general meeting, on 26 June, the campaign groups Access and FairPensions asked Vodafone to endorse a plan to prevent the company facing similar demands in the future.


title: Vodafone

text: In Australia, particularly towards the end of 2010, Vodafone was heavily criticised due to allegations of poor customer service and severe technical inadequacies, which earned them their nickname "Vodafail" a website of the same name still exists. In response, they have developed a "new" network, and now provide a 30-day satisfaction guarantee.


title: Vodafone

text: In 2019, Vodafone was rated as the UK's worst mobile network provider for the eighth year in a row, in the eighth annual survey by consumer lobby group "Which?".


title: Vodafone

text: Vodafone UK, in common with other operators, has been criticised for holding customers on regular monthly billed contracts liable for almost unlimited roaming costs when their phones are stolen abroad, despite being seemingly able to limit costs of pay-as-you-go contracts.


title: Vodafone

text: In October 2016, Vodafone was fined a record £4.6m by Ofcom for "serious" breaches of consumer protection rules.


title: Vodafone

text: In October 2017, Citizens Advice undertook a mystery shopping exercise which found that Vodafone, along with EE and Three, were not reducing customers' bills after fixed deals finished which meant that they were paying an extra £22 a month on average.


title: Vodafone

text: In June 2014, Vodafone revealed information about their and other telecommunication operators' 'direct access systems', content data and metadata interception programmes globally.


title: Vodafone

text: In March 2019, the Indian investigation agency CBI filed a plea in the Supreme Court against Vodafone and Airtel alleging non cooperation in the Saradha chitfund scam. The court listed the matter for a hearing on 8 April 2019.


title: Dexamethasone

text: Dexamethasone is a glucocorticoid medication used to treat rheumatic problems, a number of skin diseases, severe allergies, asthma, chronic obstructive lung disease, croup, brain swelling, eye pain following eye surgery, superior vena cava syndrome (a complication of some forms of cancer), and along with antibiotics in tuberculosis. In adrenocortical insufficiency, it may be used in combination with a mineralocorticoid medication such as fludrocortisone. In preterm labor, it may be used to improve outcomes in the baby. It may be given by mouth, as an injection into a muscle, as an injection into a vein, as a topical cream or ointment for the skin or as a topical ophthalmic solution to the eye. The effects of dexamethasone are frequently seen within a day and last for about three days.


title: Dexamethasone

text: The long-term use of dexamethasone may result in thrush, bone loss, cataracts, easy bruising, or muscle weakness. It is in pregnancy category C in the United States, meaning that it should only be used when the benefits are predicted to be greater than the risks. In Australia, the oral use is category A, meaning it has been frequently used in pregnancy and not been found to cause problems to the baby. It should not be taken when breastfeeding. Dexamethasone has anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressant effects.


title: Dexamethasone

text: Dexamethasone was first synthesized in 1957 by Philip Showalter Hench and was approved for medical use in 1958. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. In 2020, it was the 272nd most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 1million prescriptions.


title: Dexamethasone

text: Dexamethasone is used to treat many inflammatory and autoimmune disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis and bronchospasm. Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, a decrease in numbers of platelets due to an immune problem, responds to 40 mg daily for four days; it may be administered in 14-day cycles. It is unclear whether dexamethasone in this condition is significantly better than other glucocorticoids.


title: Dexamethasone

text: It is also given in small amounts before and/or after some forms of dental surgery, such as the extraction of the wisdom teeth, an operation which often causes puffy, swollen cheeks.


title: Dexamethasone

text: Dexamethasone is commonly given as a treatment for croup in children, as a single dose can reduce the swelling of the airway to improve breathing and reduce discomfort.


title: Dexamethasone

text: It is injected into the heel when treating plantar fasciitis, sometimes in conjunction with triamcinolone acetonide.


title: Dexamethasone

text: It is present in certain eye drops – particularly after eye surgery – and as a nasal spray, and certain ear drops (can be combined with an antibiotic and an antifungal). Dexamethasone intravitreal steroid implants have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat ocular conditions such as diabetic macular edema, central retinal vein occlusion, and uveitis. Dexamethasone has also been used with antibiotics to treat acute endophthalmitis.


title: Dexamethasone

text: Dexamethasone is used in transvenous screw-in cardiac pacing leads to minimize the inflammatory response of the myocardium. The steroid is released into the myocardium as soon as the screw is extended and can play a significant role in minimizing the acute pacing threshold due to the reduction of inflammatory response. The typical quantity present in a lead tip is less than 1.0 mg.


title: Dexamethasone

text: Dexamethasone may be administered before antibiotics in cases of bacterial meningitis. It acts to reduce the inflammatory response of the body to the bacteria killed by the antibiotics (bacterial death releases proinflammatory mediators that can cause a response which is harmful), thus reducing hearing loss and neurological damage.


title: Dexamethasone

text: People with cancer undergoing chemotherapy are often given dexamethasone to counteract certain side effects of their antitumor treatments. Dexamethasone can increase the antiemetic effect of 5-HT receptor antagonists, such as ondansetron. The exact mechanism of this interaction is not well-defined, but it has been theorized that this effect may be due to, among many other causes, inhibition of prostaglandin synthesis, anti-inflammatory effects, immunosuppressive effects, decreased release of endogenous opioids, or a combination of the aforementioned.


title: Dexamethasone

text: In brain tumors (primary or metastatic), dexamethasone is used to counteract the development of edema, which could eventually compress other brain structures. It is also given in cord compression, where a tumor is compressing the spinal cord. Evidence on the safety and efficacy of using dexamethasone to treat malignant brain tumors is not clear.


title: Dexamethasone

text: Dexamethasone is also used as a direct chemotherapeutic agent in certain hematological malignancies, especially in the treatment of multiple myeloma, in which dexamethasone is given alone or in combination with other chemotherapeutic drugs, including most commonly with thalidomide (Thal-dex), lenalidomide, bortezomib (Velcade, Vel-dex), or a combination of doxorubicin (Adriamycin) and vincristine or bortezomib/lenalidomide/dexamethasone.


title: Dexamethasone

text: Dexamethasone is recommended by the National Health Service in the UK and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US for people with COVID-19 who need either mechanical ventilation or supplemental oxygen (without ventilation).


title: Dexamethasone

text: The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) guideline panel suggests the use of glucocorticoids for people with severe COVID-19, defined as people with SpO ≤94% on room air, and those who require supplemental oxygen, mechanical ventilation, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). The IDSA recommends against the use of glucocorticoids for those with COVID-19 without hypoxemia requiring supplemental oxygen.


title: Dexamethasone

text: The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends systemic corticosteroids rather than no systemic corticosteroids for the treatment of people with COVID-19 (strong recommendation, based on moderate certainty evidence). The WHO suggests not to use corticosteroids in the treatment of people with non-severe COVID-19 (conditional recommendation, based on low certainty evidence).


title: Dexamethasone

text: The Oxford University RECOVERY Trial issued a press release announcing preliminary results that the drug could reduce deaths by about a third in participants on ventilators and by about a fifth in participants on oxygen; it did not benefit people who did not require respiratory support. A meta-analysis of seven clinical trials of critically ill COVID-19 participants, each treated with one of three different corticosteroids found a statistically significant reduction in death. The largest reduction was obtained with dexamethasone (36% compared to placebo).


title: Dexamethasone

text: In September 2020, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) endorsed the use of dexamethasone in adults and adolescents, from twelve years of age and weighing at least , who require supplemental oxygen therapy. Dexamethasone can be taken by mouth or given as an injection or infusion (drip) into a vein.


title: Dexamethasone

text: In November 2020, the Public Health Agency of Canada's Clinical Pharmacology Task Group recommended dexamethasone for hospitalized patients requiring mechanical ventilation. Although dexamethasone, and other glucocorticoids, reduce mortality in COVID-19 they have also been associated with an increased risk of secondary infections, secondary infections being a significant issue in critically ill COVID-19 patients.


title: Dexamethasone

text: The mechanism of action of dexamethasone involves suppression of late-stage interferon type I programs in severe COVID-19 patients.


title: Dexamethasone

text: In adrenal insufficiency and Addison's disease, dexamethasone is prescribed when the patient does not respond well to prednisone or methylprednisolone.


title: Dexamethasone

text: It can be used in congenital adrenal hyperplasia in older adolescents and adults to suppress Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) production. It is typically given at night.


title: Dexamethasone

text: Dexamethasone may be given to women at risk of delivering prematurely to promote maturation of the fetus' lungs. This administration, given from one day to one week before delivery, has been associated with low birth weight, although not with increased rates of neonatal death.


title: Dexamethasone

text: Dexamethasone has also been used during pregnancy as an off-label prenatal treatment for the symptoms of congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) in female babies. CAH causes a variety of physical abnormalities, notably ambiguous genitalia. Early prenatal CAH treatment has been shown to reduce some CAH symptoms, but it does not treat the underlying congenital disorder. This use is controversial: it is inadequately studied, only around one in ten of the fetuses of women treated are at risk of the condition, and serious adverse events have been documented. Experimental use of dexamethasone in pregnancy for fetal CAH treatment was discontinued in Sweden when one in five cases had adverse events.


title: Dexamethasone

text: A small clinical trial found long-term effects on verbal working memory among the small group of children treated prenatally, but the small number of test subjects means the study cannot be considered definitive.


title: Dexamethasone

text: Dexamethasone is used in the treatment of high-altitude cerebral edema (HACE), as well as high-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE). It is commonly carried on mountain-climbing expeditions to help climbers deal with complications of altitude sickness.


title: Dexamethasone

text: Intravenous dexamethasone is effective for prevention of nausea and vomiting in people who had surgery and whose post-operative pain was treated with long-acting spinal or epidural spinal opioids.


title: Dexamethasone

text: The combination of dexamethasone and a 5-HT receptor antagonist such as ondansetron is more effective than a 5-HT receptor antagonist alone in preventing postoperative nausea and vomiting.


title: Dexamethasone

text: The exact incidence of the adverse effects of dexamethasone are not available, hence estimates have been made as to the incidence of the adverse effects below based on the adverse effects of related corticosteroids and on available documentation on dexamethasone.


title: Dexamethasone

text: As a glucocorticoid, dexamethasone is an agonist of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR). It is highly selective for the GR over the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR), and in relation to this, has minimal mineralocorticoid activity. This is in contrast to endogenous corticosteroids like cortisol, which bind to and activate both the GR and the MR. Dexamethasone is 25 times more potent than hydrocortisone (cortisol) as a glucocorticoid. Its affinity (K) for the GR was about 1.2nM in one study.


title: Dexamethasone

text: The activation of the GR by dexamethasone results in dose-dependent suppression of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis (HPA axis) and of production of endogenous corticosteroids by the adrenal glands, thereby reducing circulating endogenous concentrations of corticosteroids like cortisol and corticosterone.


title: Dexamethasone

text: Dexamethasone poorly penetrates the blood–brain barrier into the central nervous system due to binding to P-glycoprotein. However, higher doses of dexamethasone override the export capacity of P-glycoprotein and enter the brain to produce central activation of GRs. In conjunction with the suppression of endogenous corticosteroids by dexamethasone, this results in skewed ratios of activation of peripheral versus central GRs as well as skewed ratios of activation of GRs versus MRs when compared to non-synthetic corticosteroids. These differences can have significant clinical relevance.


title: Dexamethasone

text: Dexamethasone is a synthetic pregnane corticosteroid and derivative of cortisol (hydrocortisone) and is also known as 1-dehydro-9α-fluoro-16α-methylhydrocortisone or as 9α-fluoro-11β,17α,21-trihydroxy-16α-methylpregna-1,4-diene-3,20-dione. The molecular and crystal structure of dexamethasone has been determined by X-ray crystallography. It is a stereoisomer of betamethasone, the two compounds differing only in the spatial configuration of the methyl group at position 16 (see steroid nomenclature).


title: Dexamethasone

text: To synthesize dexamethasone, 16β-methylprednisolone acetate is dehydrated to the 9,11-dehydro derivative. This is then reacted with a source of hypobromite, such as basic "N"-bromosuccinimide, to form the 9α-bromo-11β-hydrin derivative, which is then ring-closed to an epoxide. A ring-opening reaction with hydrogen fluoride in tetrahydrofuran gives dexamethasone.


title: Dexamethasone

text: Dexamethasone was first synthesized by Philip Showalter Hench in 1957. It was introduced for medical use in 1958.


title: Dexamethasone

text: On 16 June 2020, the RECOVERY Trial announced preliminary results stating that dexamethasone improves survival rates of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 receiving oxygen or on a ventilator. Benefits were only observed in patients requiring respiratory support; those who did not require breathing support saw a worse survival rate than the control group, although the difference may have been due to chance.


title: Dexamethasone

text: A preprint containing the full dataset was published on 22 June 2020, and demand for dexamethasone surged after publication of the preprint. The preliminary report was published in "The New England Journal of Medicine" on 18 July 2020. The final report was published in February 2021.


title: Dexamethasone

text: The World Health Organization (WHO) states that dexamethasone should be reserved for seriously ill and critical patients receiving COVID-19 treatment in a hospital setting, and the WHO Director-General stated that "WHO emphasizes that dexamethasone should only be used for patients with severe or critical disease, under close clinical supervision. There is no evidence this drug works for patients with mild disease or as a preventative measure, and it could cause harm." In July 2020, the WHO stated they are in the process of updating treatment guidelines to include dexamethasone or other steroids. In September 2020, the WHO released updated guidance on using corticosteroids for COVID-19.


title: Dexamethasone

text: In July 2020, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) started reviewing results from the RECOVERY study arm that involved the use of dexamethasone in the treatment of patients with COVID-19 admitted to the hospital to provide an opinion on the results and in particular the potential use of dexamethasone for the treatment of adults with COVID-19. In September 2020, the EMA received an application for marketing authorization of dexamethasone for COVID-19.


title: Dexamethasone

text: Dexamethasone is inexpensive. In the United States a month of medication is typically priced less than . In India, a course of treatment for preterm labor is about . The drug is available in most areas of the world.


title: Dexamethasone

text: Dexamethasone is given in legal Bangladesh brothels to prostitutes not yet of legal age, causing weight gain aimed at making them appear older and healthier to customers and police.


title: Dexamethasone

text: Dexamethasone and most glucocorticoids are banned by sporting bodies including the World Anti-Doping Agency.


title: Dexamethasone

text: Combined with marbofloxacin CAS number 115550-35-1and clotrimazole, dexamethasone is available under the name Aurizon, CAS number 50-02-2, and used to treat difficult ear infections, especially in dogs. It can also be combined with trichlormethiazide to treat horses with swelling of distal limbs and general bruising.


title: Kim Richards

text: Kim Erica Richards (born September 19, 1964) is an American actress, socialite, and television personality. She began her career as a child actress, and rose to prominence from her roles in "Nanny and the Professor", "Escape to Witch Mountain", and "Return from Witch Mountain". In 2010, Richards appeared as a main cast member on "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" alongside her sister Kyle Richards. She was part of the main cast for the first five seasons and has returned for guest appearances in subsequent seasons.


title: Kim Richards

text: Richards was born September 19, 1964, in Mineola, New York, the daughter of Kathleen Mary (née Dugan) and her second husband, Kenneth Edwin Richards. They separated in 1972 and her mother later remarried. Her younger sister is actress, socialite, and television personality Kyle Richards. Socialite Kathy Hilton is her half-sister, from her mother's prior marriage to Larry Avanzino, and her nieces include Nicky and Paris Hilton. Richards is of Welsh and Irish ancestry.


title: Kim Richards

text: Richards' career began when she was months old and appeared in a TV commercial for Firth Carpet. From 1970 to 1971, she starred as Prudence Everett in the television series "Nanny and the Professor". She also starred in several Disney films, including "Escape to Witch Mountain", "No Deposit, No Return", and "Return from Witch Mountain".


title: Kim Richards

text: In 1974 and 1976, Richards appeared in Disney's "Whiz Kid Capers" series ("The Whiz Kid and the Mystery at Riverton" and "The Whiz Kid and the Carnival Caper"), two television movies that aired as part of "The Wonderful World of Disney" anthology series.


title: Kim Richards

text: Richards and her sister Kyle played sisters in the thriller film "The Car" (1977). She teamed up once again with "Witch Mountain" co-star Ike Eisenmann in the made-for-television movie "" (1978). In the 1976 film "Assault on Precinct 13", she played a young girl who was brutally murdered when a gang member fired a round into her chest. She later starred in the short-lived television series "Hello, Larry" (1979-80) and appeared as a guest on numerous episodes of American television shows, including "Emergency!", "Diff'rent Strokes", "Alice", "Fantasy Island", "The Love Boat", "CHiPs", "Magnum, P.I.", "James at 16", "The Dukes of Hazzard", "The Rockford Files", and "Little House on the Prairie" as Olga Nordstrom.


title: Kim Richards

text: As a young adult, she appeared in "Meatballs Part II" (1984) and "Tuff Turf" (1985). in 1990, she co-produced the film "Escape", along with then-husband G. Monty Brinson.


title: Kim Richards

text: Richards appeared in a supporting role as Christina Ricci's estranged mother in "Black Snake Moan" (2006). She made a cameo appearance in "Race to Witch Mountain" (2009), playing a waitress named Tina, a minor variation from the character Tia she played in the franchise's 1975 and 1978 films.


title: Kim Richards

text: In 2010, Richards began appearing as a regular cast member of "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills", alongside her sister Kyle. After five seasons, Kim was let go as a full-time cast member following her personal struggles. She returned as a guest star, though, in the show's sixth, seventh, ninth, and tenth seasons.


title: Kim Richards

text: In 1985, Richards married Monty Brinson, a supermarket-franchise heir who later became a professional poker player. They have one daughter together, Brooke Ashley (born February 21, 1986).


title: Kim Richards

text: Brinson and Richards divorced amicably in 1988. Later that year, she married Gregg Davis, the son of petroleum mogul Marvin Davis and his wife Barbara Davis. They have two children together: a daughter, Whitney Nicole Davis (born March 16, 1990) and a son, Chad Austin Davis (born May 26, 1991). Richards and Davis divorced in 1991.


title: Kim Richards

text: Following her separation from Davis, Richards dated commodities salesman John J. Collett, a central figure in a criminal scheme involving 8,000 elderly investors and nearly US$150 million (equivalent to $ million in ) in losses. On October 28, 1991, he was murdered outside Brent's Deli in Northridge. He was shot twice in the head at point-blank range by a hit man who had been paid US$30,000 (). He was speaking with Kim on the phone when the shooting occurred. Richards spoke about Collett's murder on an episode of "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills".


title: Kim Richards

text: After Collett's death, Richards was in a relationship with aircraft-parts supplier John Jackson from 1992 to 1996. She gave birth to their daughter, Kimberly Collette Jackson, on August 23, 1995.


title: Kim Richards

text: From 2012 to 2018 she was in a relationship with businessman Wynn Katz. They appeared together on WE TV's "Marriage Boot Camp" in 2018, and split after their appearance on the show.


title: Kim Richards

text: On April 15, 2015, Richards was arrested and charged with trespassing, public intoxication, resisting an officer, and battery on a police officer at the Beverly Hills Hotel. She spent the night in Los Angeles County Jail and was released the next morning on bail of US$20,000. She was arrested again on August 2, 2015, for allegedly shoplifting at a San Fernando Valley Target department store, was booked into the Van Nuys jail, and was released on August 3 after posting bail of US$5,000.


title: Kim Richards

text: Richards remained close friends with first husband Brinson and helped care for him during his struggle with lung cancer, which eventually caused his death on January 25, 2016 at age 58.


title: Kim Richards

text: Richards has two grandsons through her oldest daughter Brooke and husband, Thayer Wiederhorn: Hucksley Andrew Wiederhorn (born September 28, 2016) and Hunter Montgomery Wiederhorn (born April 18, 2019).


title: Kratos (mythology)

text: In Greek mythology, Kratos (or Cratos) is the divine personification of strength. He is the son of Pallas and Styx. Kratos and his siblings Nike ('Victory'), Bia ('Force'), and Zelus ('Glory') are all essentially personifications of a trait. Kratos is first mentioned alongside his siblings in Hesiod's "Theogony". According to Hesiod, Kratos and his siblings dwell with Zeus because their mother Styx came to him first to request a position in his regime, so he honored her and her children with exalted positions. Kratos and his sister Bia are best known for their appearance in the opening scene of Aeschylus' "Prometheus Bound". Acting as agents of Zeus, they lead the captive Titan Prometheus on stage. Kratos compels the mild-mannered blacksmith god Hephaestus to chain Prometheus to a rock as punishment for his theft of fire.


title: Kratos (mythology)

text: Kratos is characterized as brutal and merciless, repeatedly mocking both Hephaestus and Prometheus and advocating for the use of unnecessary violence. He defends Zeus' oppressive rule and predicts that Prometheus will never escape his bonds. In Aeschylus' "Libation Bearers", Electra calls upon Kratos, Dike ("Justice"), and Zeus to aid her brother Orestes in avenging the murder of their father Agamemnon. Kratos and Bia appear in a late fifth-century BC red-figure Attic "skyphos" of the punishment of Ixion, possibly based on a scene from a lost tragedy by Euripides. They also appear in late eighteenth and nineteenth-century Romantic depictions and adaptations of the binding of Prometheus.


title: Kratos (mythology)

text: Kratos and his siblings are first mentioned in the "Theogony", which was composed by the Boeotian poet Hesiod in the late eighth or early seventh century BC. Hesiod states: "And Styx the daughter of Ocean was joined to Pallas and bore Zelus (Emulation) and trim-ankled Nike (Victory) in the house. Also she brought forth Cratos (Strength) and Bia (Force), wonderful children. These have no house apart from Zeus, nor any dwelling nor path except that wherein God leads them, but they dwell always with Zeus the loud-thunderer." Here Kratos is merely listed as a deified abstraction with little development or explanation. Hesiod goes on to explain that the reason why the children of Styx were allowed to dwell with Zeus was because Zeus had decreed after the Titanomachy that all those who had not held offices under Kronos would be given positions in his regime. Because Styx came to Zeus first, along with her children, Zeus honored them as among the highest members of his new regime. According to Diana Burton, Styx, Zelos, Nike, Kratos, and Bia's voluntary change in allegiance represents the certainty of Zeus' victory over the Titans. While the goddesses Dike ("Justice"), Eunomia ("Good Law"), and Eirene ("Peace") represent the benefits of Zeus' reign, Kratos and his siblings represent the work needed to build that regime.


title: Kratos (mythology)

text: In the opening scene of the tragedy "Prometheus Bound", which is traditionally attributed to Aeschylus, Kratos and his sister Bia are taking Prometheus to a remote location in the Scythian wilderness, where he will be chained to a rocky outcropping. The order to do this was given by Zeus himself and Kratos and Bia are portrayed as the embodiment of Zeus' new regime. The presence of Kratos and Bia but absence of Nike and Zelos indicates the play's tyrannical portrayal of Zeus, since Kratos and Bia represent the more tyrannical aspects of authority. Kratos in particular represents what Ian Ruffell calls "the kind of uncomplicated thug for whom despotic regimes offer countless job opportunities." He enforces the power of Zeus through physical brutality and pitilessness. Bia, though present in the scene, does not have any lines; only Kratos speaks.


title: Kratos (mythology)

text: Kratos coerces the mild-mannered blacksmith god Hephaestus into chaining Prometheus to the rocky crag, despite Hephaestus' objections to this. Hephaestus laments over Prometheus' future suffering, leading Kratos to ridicule him. Kratos equates the rule of law with rule by fear and condemns pity as a pointless waste of time. Hephaestus and Kratos agree that Zeus is "oppressive" ("barys"; literally "heavy"). Kratos regards justice (δίκη; "dikê") as a system of cosmic hierarchy in which the monarch, Zeus, decides who receives which privileges and who does not. Anyone who breaches this social divide is a transgressor who must be punished. Kratos states that, under the rule of a monarch such as Zeus, no one but Zeus himself is truly free. Hephaestus agrees with this assessment.


title: Kratos (mythology)

text: Kratos repeatedly orders Hephaestus to use more violence than necessary to inflict as much pain as possible against Prometheus. First he orders Hephaestus to nail Prometheus' hands to the rock. Then he orders him to drive a steel wedge through his chest. Finally, he orders him to tie Prometheus' legs to immobilize him. Hephaestus criticizes Kratos, telling him that his speech is as ugly as his physical appearance. Kratos responds by telling him, "Be soft. Do not throw in my face my 'willfulness' and 'roughness of temper'." Once Prometheus has been bound, Hephaestus, Bia, and Kratos exit offstage, with Kratos being the last one to leave. Just before his exeunt, Kratos mocks Prometheus, saying that he will never escape from his shackles and that he does not deserve his name. ("Prometheus" means "forethought" in Greek.) According to Robert Holmes Beck, Aeschylus' depiction of the harsh punishment of Prometheus was intended as an example of how wrongdoers must be punished to deter others from transgressing. In this interpretation, Kratos' cruelty is not intended to be viewed as excessive, but rather as the proper enforcement of justice.


title: Kratos (mythology)

text: In Aeschylus' "Libation Bearers", Electra invokes Kratos, Dike, and Zeus to support her and her brother Orestes' quest to avenge the murder of their father Agamemnon by their mother Clytemnestra. Plato's dialogue "Protagoras", written in the fourth century BC, includes an account of the legend of Prometheus in which Prometheus stole fire from the temple of Athena and Hephaestus rather than the citadel of Zeus because the "guards of Zeus" (Διὸς φυλακαί; "Dios phylakai") were too frightening. The identity of these "guards" is unknown and disputed.


title: Kratos (mythology)

text: Depictions of Kratos and Bia in ancient Greek art are extremely rare. The only known surviving depiction of Kratos and Bia in ancient Greek pottery is on a fragmentary red-figure "skyphos" by the Meidias Painter, or a member of his circle, that is dated to the end of the fifth century BC and depicts the punishment of Ixion. One of Bia's hands is visible on the wheel that Ixion is bound to, steadying it. H. A. Shapiro conjectures that this is probably a representation of a scene from the lost tragedy "Ixion" by Euripides, who likely borrowed the figures of Kratos and Bia from "Prometheus Bound". Kratos is listed as one of the sons of Pallas and Styx in the "Library" of Pseudo-Apollodorus.


title: Kratos (mythology)

text: In 1772, Thomas Morell published his English translation of "Prometheus Bound" as "Prometheus in Chains", making the work widely available to the British public for the first time. Four years afterwards, the abolitionist Richard Potter published a complete English translation of all Aeschylus' tragedies. The scene from "Prometheus Bound" in which Hephaestus chains Prometheus to a mountainside with the aid of Kratos and Bia captured the imagination of the eighteenth and nineteenth-century Romantics and became a lens through which they analyzed questions of the relationships between revolution and tyranny, slavery and freedom, and war and peace.


title: Kratos (mythology)

text: Richard Porson's 1795 translation of "Prometheus Bound" was illustrated with drawings by John Flaxman showing the famous binding scene. Between 1798 and 1799, George Romney produced a series of chalk drawings of scenes from "Prometheus Bound", including the binding scene with Kratos and Bia. In both Flaxman and Romney's illustrations, Kratos and Bia are shown together in symmetry. In 1819, Percy Bysshe Shelley adapted the myth of Prometheus for his own play "Prometheus Unbound".


title: Kratos (mythology)

text: In Gabriel Fauré's three-act opera "Prométhée", first performed in 1900 with a French libretto written by the poets Jean Lorrain and André-Ferdinand Hérold, the scene from the beginning of "Prometheus Bound" in which Kratos coerces Hephaestus into binding Prometheus is closely paraphrased. Hephaestus' dialogue with Kratos is set to music containing "impressionist allusions to the whole-tone scale". Fauré was known for his soft, genteel chamber music and the "hateful fury" of the music behind Kratos and Bia's dialogue stunned audiences.


title: Kratos (mythology)

text: A character named Kratos appears in the "God of War" video game franchise, the first seven games of which are based on Greek mythology. The character is portrayed as what classical scholar Sylwia Chmielewski calls "a deeply tragic, Herculean anti-hero who, after murdering his family, has to wash away the miasma to regain his peace of mind." The video game character Kratos was given his name at a late stage in the development of the original 2005 game, after the character had already been fleshed out. Unaware of the actual mythological god named Kratos appearing in "Prometheus Bound", the creators coincidentally chose the name Kratos, the same Greek word meaning "Strength", of which the mythological figure Kratos is the personification. Stig Asmussen, the director of 2010's "God of War III", called the naming coincidence a "happy mistake", noting that the Kratos in the game and the one in "Prometheus Bound" are both "pawns". Zoran Iovanovici of California State University, Long Beach observed with irony that, while the mythological Kratos is best known for chaining Prometheus, in 2007's "God of War II", the video game character releases him. Chmielewski states that the video game character Kratos draws extensively on other figures from Greek mythology, including the heroes Perseus, Theseus, and Achilles, but his strongest influence is the hero Heracles. The Greek-based games portray Kratos as brutal and violent towards innocents. In "God of War III", he destroys the vast majority of the Greek gods, who are portrayed as "corrupted and vengeful", and restores the original state of primordial chaos to Greece. In the 2018 continuation and its sequel, Kratos finds himself controlling his rage and learning how to truly be a father and mentor to his son, Atreus, helping him come to terms with his divinity. Along their journey, they combat monsters and gods of the Norse realm, of whom they make enemies, which inevitably leads to the catastrophic Ragnarök.


title: Trevor Moore (comedian)

text: Trevor Paul Moore (April 4, 1980 – August 7, 2021) was an American comedian, actor, writer, director, and producer. He was known for being one of the founding members—alongside Sam Brown and Zach Cregger—of the New York City-based comedy troupe the Whitest Kids U' Know (WKUK), who had their own sketch comedy series on IFC that ran for five seasons.


title: Trevor Moore (comedian)

text: Moore was born in Montclair, New Jersey. His parents are former Christian folk-rock singers Mickey and Becki Moore who were successful in the 1980s, their single "Love Song for Number Two" having reached No. 2 on the U.S. Christian charts. Because he traveled a lot on tour with his family, he changed schools constantly, going to about five different schools. By the age of 15, he became a published cartoonist after compiling his early work in a book called "Scraps". At 16, Moore created the comic strip "Cuddy" for the now-defunct newspaper "The Charlottesville Observer" in Charlottesville, Virginia.


title: Trevor Moore (comedian)

text: Moore attended high school at the Covenant School in Charlottesville, and by the time he was 18 he graduated while also developing personal projects. Moore started out as a broadcasting major at Virginia Commonwealth University, and while he originally wanted to study journalism and political science, he chose film in the end. Moore, like his future Whitest Kids U' Know companions Sam Brown and Zach Cregger, studied at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, where he majored in film with a BFA and graduated "cum laude".


title: Trevor Moore (comedian)

text: From 1997 to 1998, his show "The Trevor Moore Show" ran on public-access television in Charlottesville, Virginia. It garnered a following among the local college community, and by the time he was 18, Moore was offered a deal by Pax-TV (now Ion Television). The show lasted sixteen episodes, featuring sketches like "Hey Hey, Who Died Today?" (a parody newscast from the local senior citizens' home) and the "Walking-Talking Box", but was cancelled due to what was deemed offensive material and a mistake regarding the programming of the show, namely being broadcast too early for its rating. It was his belief that the show would only air at night, but halfway through the first season he found out that it was being rerun at 9 a.m. on Saturday mornings.