Country’s good name is at risk - Olympic ticket scandal

THERE is an onus on Pat Hickey, president of the Olympic Council of Ireland, to immediately respond to mounting pressure from politicians and the public to clarify the mystery surrounding the scandal of over 1,000 tickets for the games which had been allocated to the OCI, turning up for sale on the black market in Brazil.

Until he does so, Ireland’s good name internationally will continue to be dragged through the mud.

The nail has been hit squarely on the head by Sean Fleming TD, chairman of the powerful Public Accounts Committee, who called on him to make a personal statement, adding that Mr Hickey would also have to appear before a Dáil committee after the Olympics. He went on to state that it was not enough for the OCI to say the matter was being investigated by the police and by the council itself. A statement issued by that body yesterday merely said its investigation was “progressing”.

So far, the Rio Olympics have been somewhat disappointing from an Irish perspective. In the boxing ring, the one sport where Irish athletes were expected to do reasonably well, if not to repeat the rich harvest of medals they won at the London Olympics four years ago, the results have been abysmal.

One member of the team has been sent home in disgrace for stupidly taking a banned substance which he got from someone who had no connection with either the sport or the team. With two others losing their fights on split decisions, this means that Ireland has already lost three of its eight boxing medal hopefuls.

However a brighter light was seen yesterday when both the women’s lightweight double sculls pair and the men’s duo made it through to their final race. Also on the water, the Irish sailor dubbed the “Breeze Queen”, leads her event. Hopefully, they will all bring home medals.

Compared to the tickets mess that the OCI finds itself mired in, the woes of Ireland’s clean boxers can be attributed to the age-old aphorism “that’s sport”. While it is unclear what ticket allocation the OCI received, the reality is that for months Irish fans with money in their pockets and looking for tickets to the Games were told to try the British Olympic office. Yet, as we now know, the Rio police have arrested two people, an Irishman named Kevin James Mallon, a director of THG Sports, and Barbara Carnieri, who was working as an interpreter at the Games. They face charges of selling around 1,000 tickets, which had clearly been allocated to the OCI, at four times the official price.

Hard questions must be put to OCI president Hickey by Sports Minister Shane Ross when he travels to Rio this weekend. To date, the involvement of the minister in this shoddy affair has been lacklustre.

At the end of the day, Mr Hickey what the taxpayer who funds the OCI wants to know is: how did the tickets end up on the black market in Rio de Janeiro; who supplied them to the ticket touts and what action will be taken? We need answers now — not at Christmas!