If this was already posted you can remove, but I just read this this morning
Revealed! The FIFA official who sold
thousands of World Cup tickets
Exclusive
By ANDREW JENNINGS
THE World Cup's greediest ticket tout was vice president Jack
Warner who flagrantly defied FIFA's rules and secretly set up
deals to sell thousands of tickets worth millions of pounds on
the black market - including 900 destined for England fans.
Confidential reports exposing Warner's activities were handed
to FIFA's bosses before and during the tournament - but have
been suppressed.
The protection of Warner - who controls 35 crucial votes that
keep President Sepp Blatter in power - contrasts starkly with
the fate of fellow executive committee member Ismail Bhamjee
in June. Caught selling a dozen World Cup tickets to English
fans, Bhamjee was instantly expelled.
We have acquired copies of highly confidential reports
produced for FIFA by auditors Ernst & Young that shine a light
into the murky world of how Warner was allowed to amass a
fortune trading in precious tickets.
Warner and his son Daryan began operations in June 2005,
using their private Simpaul travel company in Trinidad to strike
secret deals to sell thousands of packages of rooms and
tickets to agents around the world.
FIFA turned a blind eye but were forced to act when the
Trinidad media revealed in December that Warner charged
huge mark-ups on Simpaul ticket-and-room packages to local
fans eager to support their team in Germany.
FIFA's ethics committee criticised Warner's ticket deals but in
March the executive committee absolved him of any
impropriety after he claimed he had severed all connection
with Simpaul.
FIFA was deceived. Daryan Warner continued as managing
director of Simpaul and Jack Warner's long-time close
associate Patricia Modeste remained company secretary.
Through Simpaul the Warners secretly sold 'England Packages'
to David Gambier of the Abingdon-based Sports World Group,
guaranteeing 900 tickets for England's first round matches.
Another deal was struck with Miami-based Soccer Travel to
supply 1,500 tickets for Mexico's initial games.
Then Simpaul contracted to supply an astonishing 3,000
tickets to Kinki Nippon Tours for Japan's first three matches.
Hotel rooms were booked through Florida-based Kick Sports
Inc - who ordered additional tickets to sell in Europe. These
middlemen began taking advance payments from customers as
early as November 2005. Finally, the Warners struck another
profitable deal to supply £1,700,000 worth of hotel rooms in
Germany.
One secret Ernst & Young report estimates the Warners would
clear a profit of at least £500,000 on the 5,400 tickets for
England, Mexico and Japan.
Ernst & Young obtained Daryan's emails confirming the details,
all copied to his father, Jack Warner.
Warner's demands for tickets became so outrageous that the
Manchester-based Byrom company who operate FIFA's ticket
office tipped off Ernst & Young who had been appointed to
monitor potentially dodgy deals.
Two Ernst & Young accountants interviewed Daryan Warner in
Manchester at the end of March and again a week later in
Trinidad. According to Ernst & Young, Daryan scoffed at their
requests for detailed information required by the FIFA-Simpaul
contract and said he would refuse to hand over key documents
even if FIFA ordered him to. Ernst & Young say Daryan claimed
he had assurances that he was untouchable and would have no
problem receiving thousands of tickets this time.
Ernst & Young sent their damning report to FIFA General
Secretary Urs Linsi on April 11, but FIFA took no action against
Jack Warner.
THE AUDITORS were called in again on June 20 when Swiss
travel agent Antonio Gallicchio turned up at FIFA's hotel in
Berlin and complained he not received all the tickets he had
paid for.
He revealed that on June 14 Daryan Warner collected 180
tickets, ordered by his father, from FIFA's ticket office in Berlin
and immediately handed them to Florida ticket dealer Howard
Schwartz of Kick Sports who sent them by courier to
Switzerland the same day.
But Gallicchio - who paid ??400 for ??100 tickets - was incensed
that Daryan Warner and Kick Sports failed to deliver tickets for
another Swiss match and for three second round matches,
causing him great expense buying black market tickets to
satisfy customers.
Gallicchio claimed that 20 of the tickets he received from the
Warner family had been issued by FIFA to the Grenada football
federation, part of Warner's Caribbean empire.
The huge volume of tickets demanded by Warner rang alarm
bells in FIFA's ticket office and on June 18 Kick Sport's Howard
Schwartz, in Berlin, emailed Gallacchio: 'Dear Antonio, Please
be advised that at this time, due to the political situation, I
cannot obtain any more tickets for this World Cup.'
A further Ernst & Young report submitted on July 8 to Urs Linsi
lists another 292 tickets ordered and paid for by Jack Warner
then resold at huge profits. In an appendix they attach
Warner's bill and a copy of his credit card receipt.
They concluded: 'Tickets (bought by) Jack Warner were
transferred or resold into the secondary market in breach of
the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany(tm) Ticketing General Terms
and Conditions.' FIFA took no action.
Jack Warner submitted a further demand for an astonishing
1,245 tickets for second round matches. It was not fulfilled.
Exactly four years ago we alleged that Jack Warner made a
profit of $250,000 selling tickets for the World Cup final in
Japan and another $100,000 on earlier rounds. Warner
threatened to sue - then backed off. President Blatter failed to
order an investigation.
FIFA's executive committee meets on Friday in Zurich. On the
agenda is Blatter's proposal for a new ethics committee - but
no mention of committee members' ticket rackets.
The secret documented evidence supplied by Ernst & Young,
demonstrates that Jack Warner personally took part in ticket
rackets that robbed the fans and enriched his own family, yet
FIFA took no action against Warner and his associates, and
President Sepp Blatter continues to show support and
friendship to his vice-president. Could this be because Jack
Warner controls the votes that keep Blatter in power?
Jack Warner & Simpaul
When Warner's plan to sell tickets and hotel rooms to local
fans through his Simpaul travel company was exposed in the
Trinidad media he called a press conference and flanked by
son Daryan, furiously denounced the reports as 'A carefully
orchestrated character assassination' full of 'gross
misrepresentations and inaccuracies.'
News of the scandal went world-wide and Warner hastily
referred himself to FIFA's ethics committee asking for guidance
on whether he was guilty of a conflict of interest. It was a farce.
Warner has dealt in World Cup tickets since the 1980s and as a
FIFA vice-president, could not but know the strict rules on
reselling tickets.
We have obtained the confidential ethics committee report of
February 15 where Warner claimed the allegations were untrue
and were part of a political assassination campaign against
him in Trinidad, allegedly involving this reporter! He admitted
that his Simpaul company had been doing FIFA business for
the last 19 years.
With the exception of a New York lawyer, appointed by Warner,
who insisted Warner should not be punished, the other seven
members of the committee didn't believe a word of Warner's
excuses and resolved he had abused his position to obtain
personal benefits, failed to declare his business interests and
failed to act with integrity.
Their report went to FIFA's executive committee in March but
he was exonerated and the case closed after he claimed that
he and his family had severed all links with the Simpaul
company.
It was a lie. His son Daryan continued selling thousands of
tickets through Simpaul that his father obtained improperly
from FIFA and was busy handing them over to customers in
Germany months later during the tournament.
Had the executive committee who believed Warner bothered to
check the company registration documents in Trinidad they
would have discovered that the company secretary remained
Warner's personal assistant Patricia Modeste - who gave her
address as Warner's office in Port of Spain.
When in Trinidad filming the BBC Panorama 'The Beautiful
Bung' screened in June, I phoned the two women, one a
housewife, the other a vet, who Warner had allegedly sold
Simpaul to. They hung up - twice - and when I called at their
home they slammed the door and drew the curtains. They
didn't seem the kind of people you'd expect to run a booming
travel business.
Panorama viewers also saw Warner use foul language and later
hit me when I asked him how much profit he expected to make
from selling World Cup tickets this year.
Warner long ago stood down as chief executive of Trinidad
football but appointed himself 'Special Advisor' and, using the
wealth he has accumulated as a FIFA vice-president and
president of CONCACAF, the regional confederation controlling
the Caribbean, Central and North America, appointed his own
pliant officials. He uses his high position at FIFA - and
especially his power over Caribbean associations - to plunder
the World Cup, every four years.
The confidential FIFA Ethics committee report on Warner plus
two critical reports submitted by Ernst & Young can be
downloaded at
www.transparencyinsport.org
