By Andrew Warshaw
July 15- Amid yet another twist in the alleged World Cup ticketing scandal involving the British director of a Fifa partner firm, Fifa itself has issued the strongest defence yet of its own integrity and credibility in the matter.
Reports in Brazil claim Ray Whelan, who works with Match Services on the hospitality side and is one of 12 people detained by police as part of an investigation into an international ticket touting gang, has turned himself in to a judge despite denying any wrongdoing.
Of some 3 million tickets available at the World Cup, Match was reportedly given about 450,000 to sell to hospitality clients. Last week Whelan, who was arrested, released and then sought again as part of what has been labelled Operacao Jules Rimet, was described by police as a fugitive from justice while Match insisted he was totally innocent of any intentional wrongdoing.
Fifa secretary general Jerome Valcke told reporters there was no question of his organisation having any knowledge of tickets being sold for illegally excessive amounts.
“We at Fifa- and this is a clear statement – sell all the tickets at face value,” said Valcke. “There is not a single ticket sold by this organisation for a higher value than the value which is on the ticket.”
“But there are 3 million tickets going to different parties – football parties, commercial parties and the public. What they do with the tickets is what we are fighting to protect because we have regulations. These state you cannot resell a ticket (at higher value). I’m sure there will be stories but what you cannot say is that Fifa is not fighting permanently against this business. We are fighting it 1000 percent. There were people arrested four years ago in South Africa and again here. But I say again there was not a single ticket that came out of Fifa that was over face value.”