The Olympic Council of Ireland is having a tougher time of it in Rio than they might have expected and the problems it has encountered have had nothing to do with performance.
Last week, on the eve of the Games Michael O’Reilly became the first athlete to be provisionally suspended from the games after the failure of a drugs test undertaken by Sport Ireland.
Yesterday it emerged that tickets seized as part of a sting operation on touts were clearly marked as having come from the OCI allocation.
To be in the spotlight once is unfortunate but to be so twice will be especially uncomfortable for OCI President Pat Hickey who was elected to the IOC’s Executive Committee for a second four year term on Friday.
Hickey was a vocal supporter of Russia being allowed to compete at the Games, a decision that has given rise to ill feeling given the McLaren Report and allegations of state sponsored doping.
Investigation
The OCI is launching a full investigation into how the tickets came to be in possession of those arrested, including Kevin Mallon an Irish employee of THG Sports who were the official authorised ticket reseller for the Olympic Council of Ireland in London 2012.
“The Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) has no knowledge of the two individuals arrested,” the national body said in a statement.
“The OCI has launched an immediate investigation with our Authorised Ticket Reseller, Pro10, into how the individuals were allegedly in possession of OCI allocated tickets.
“The OCI strictly adheres to the IOC regulations around ticket allocation, sale and re-sale.
“We are treating this matter with the utmost seriousness.”
Crime
Laws passed in Brazil in 2010 make it an offence to sell tickets at above their face value, making it a crime ‘against the popular economy’.
The Games have been blighted by empty seats at many of the events so far with small crowds at the Rugby 7’s finals last night and big gaps even at the Beach Volleyball over the weekend.
At the top end though it appears that there is still a demand for tickets hence the black market which appears to be at the heart of the arrests.
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