A Rio de Janeiro court on Friday "accepted prosecutors' charges against the man who until recently was Europe's top Olympic official and nine others in an illegal ticket-scalping ring picked up by police at the Games in August," according to Rodrigo Viga Gaier of REUTERS.
The defendants, who will now stand trial, include Ireland's Patrick Hickey, who in August "stepped down from his position" as exec board member on the IOC and int'l sports hospitality company THG Sports Dir Kevin Mallon.
Martin Burke, the Irish council's sports director, four other THG officials and three from Dublin-based PRO10 Sports Management, Ireland's official Olympic Games ticket reseller, "were also indicted in the court document." Except for Hickey and Mallon, "all of them are outside the country and are now considered fugitives." Police "accused Hickey, 71, of operating the ticket-scalping operation with PRO10 to funnel tickets for the Rio Games through THG Sports" to raise R$10M reais ($3M) after jacking up prices. All involved "have denied wrongdoing" (REUTERS, 9/9).
INTERVIEW REQUEST: IANS reported the IOC said that "it has not received any request from Brazilian police" to interview IOC President Thomas Bach in relation to an Olympic ticketing racket. In a statement on Friday, the IOC said, "Neither the IOC nor the IOC President have been contacted by any Brazilian authority concerning a request for information. The IOC is in this respect only informed by media." On Thursday, the Brazilian police announced that "they wanted to interview Bach for his alleged links to a ring that sought to illegally sell tickets at a marked-up cost during the 2016 Rio Olympics" (SPORTSKEEDA, 9/11).
