Authorities in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil have issued an arrest warrant for International Olympic Committee Executive Patrick Hickey, who has been accused of scalping tickets for the Olympics.
Hickey, who is 71 years old, is the president of the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) and the European Olympic Committees and a member of the IOC executive board since 2012. He’s been accused of working with at least 6 others to sell tickets to the Olympic Games for higher fees than allowed by law.
The European Olympic Committees have released a statement saying that they are aware of the reports, but are seeking “total clarity” on the situation before making a statement.
“Continuing our investigation, civil police discovered the involvement of Patrick in the international scheme of ticket scalping,” the Rio police fraud unit said. Agents seized more than 1,000 tickets that they say were being sold illegally – those tickets were allocated to the Olympic Council of Ireland.
Also caught up in the scandal is the company THG Sports: a British company who are not the authorized Irish reseller of the tickets (that title belongs to Pro 10), who were found in possession of the 1,000 tickets. The THG president Kevin Mallon and several of his employees were arrested early in the Olympic Games.
Tickets for the 2016 Olympic Games have the names of who they were issued to on them, and the tickets in question all had the OCI name printed on them.
“The OCI strictly adheres to the IOC regulations around ticket allocation, sale and re-sale. We are treating this matter with the utmost seriousness,” was the OCI’s official statement at that time.
On Monday, the OCI tried to establish itself as an investigator, not a suspect, in the alleged crimes. “For the avoidance of doubt, the OCI is not investigating itself; it is investigating the chain of events from the appointment of Pro10 to the arrest of Mr Mallon. There remains no suggestion of any wrongdoing or misconduct on the part of the OCI or any of its staff,” they said in a statement after Hicken and First Vice President William O’Brien met with Irish government officials.
They reiterated their intention that there was “no suggestion” of any wrongdoing by any part of OCI or its staff on Tuesday, but in their latest statement on Wednesday morning, declined to repeat that statement for a third time.
#pleasedontbringthistoLA
Olympfluenza defense coming.
Why would anyone buy tickets at over face value? You can sit anywhere you’d like at most venues…
Off-topic.
I was initially surprised by how many people were happy that Allison Felix lost the gold medal in the women’s 400 run. If you recall, she’s the one who had the order of events changed by the IAAF so that she could attempt to rub both the 200 and the 400 in Rio. Many of the the other athletes regard her a self-centered diva.
I watched her on the medal stand after the 400 women received their medals. There was very little group hugging and medal-biting with the others; she hopped off the podium almost immediately. And hustled away.
Very different from all of the swimming awards ceremonies I watched. Much more joy and sportsmanship in those.
You should see the whole mess that is men’s pole vault final and Renaud Lavillenie’s Twitter and the crying on the podium during medal ceremony.
Never seen anything like it at an Olympics.
The pole vault was an amazing competition. Lavillenie, the defending OLY champ and WR holder, seemingly had the event won again. He was in shock at his loss. I was quite surprised at the booing the next day. All I could figure is that perhaps he had said something in the press during the day. Bad form for the Brazillian crowd.
Efimova got some light booing prior to the start of the 100 breast, but I don’t recall any booing during the awards ceremony.
She did get booed, but it was sparse…but I could hear it (barely).
Lavillenie, being French, just could not help of being arrogant.
During the later jumps, he was acting so arrogant after each successful jump and gave the boisterous crowd thumbs down to make them go quiet. Of course it resulted in getting boos.
After the competition, he tweeted the felt like Jesse Owens being treated by the Nazi in 1936 Berlin Olympics.
What a dick.
So, the Brazilian crowd had their revenge during podium ceremony when he got jeered. Being French, he surrendered and cried.
Don’t poke the sleeping Bobo!
U said it all : french arrogance never stops …they think they got it in the bag before having ended the competition .
Agree. He ruined the moment for the winner. And yet, the American bronze medalist couldn’t stop smiling from being a part of an historic event (Olympic medal ceremony).
I thought this string was about the arrest of an Irish IOC member scalping tickets for profit. Let’s focus kids. This is just the tip of the iceberg of the corruption and self-serving that goes on in international sports. It’s disgusting.
And the American bronze medal winner is named . . . get ready: SAM KENDRICKS! I wonder if he’s any relation to our Sam Kendricks.
eh, I’ve seen some great sportsmanship among the runners – depends on the race. DAgostino obviously, but Bolt always seems to respect his fellow runners as well.