Further scrutiny of Rio tickets report

An Olympics ethics body and Irish corporate enforcers are among the groups that will examine the critical report into alleged ticket touting in Rio.

Minister for Transport Sport Shane Ross confirmed he will consider referring the Moran inquiry to the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement.

The minister was speaking at the Oireachtas Committee on Sport as members continued probing the circumstances surrounding the Rio games and the Olympic Council of Ireland.

Mr Ross said state bodies could voluntarily examine the Moran report, which looked at the chaotic handling of tickets at last year’s Olympic games and how records were inadequately kept on ticket exchanges with agents.

Mr Ross said, despite criticisms this week that the Moran report was a “damp squib”, the inquiry had uncovered useful material.

Staff and the “lieutenants” of former OCI president Pat Hickey had given crucial evidence, including how the then sports boss ran his own personal “fiefdom”, the minister said.

Mr Hickey has declined to co-operate with the inquiry.

Its work uncovered lucrative contracts secured with Ipswich Town FC owner Marcus Evans and his firm THG to resell Irish tickets at the London, Sochi and Rio games. It subsequently emerged other contracts are in place with the OCI for the Olympics up to 2026.

An Olympics ethics body led by former United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon will also get the report, Mr Ross confirmed yesterday.

Several committee members suggested that Mr Hickey should be compelled to answer questions. But Mr Ross warned this could then end up in the courts.

OCI president Sarah Keane told how she had discovered when she joined the board two years before the Rio games how difficult it would be to implement reform.

Members were on the board an average 19 years when she joined it.

“I knew change was unlikely to come easy or fast.. governance is not a tick the box exercise.”

But Ms Keane said, despite internal council problems, there was no concern about tickets until the Rio games.

She confirmed documents unearthed in the council showed that arrangements for THG to handle tickets for four Olympic games up until 2018 had been considered by the board as far back as 2010.

After she met Mr Hickey, who was “pretty sure” THG were contracted up until 2020, further contracts revealed THG was in fact the agreed ticket reseller for the OCI up until 2026.

These new contracts were signed by Pat Hickey with THG in early 2016. This was after the Evans group were banned from being agents at the Rio Olympics.

Ms Keane confirmed that when she met Mr Hickey last year he was “surprised” when she told him the OCI would not be sanctioning his honorarium payment of €60,000 for 2016.

She said the Rio controversy had been “extremely damaging” for OCI and “very costly”.