Did British football tycoon mastermind €3m ticket scam?
THE owner of Ipswich Town Football Club is under investigation by Brazilian police over sensational claims that he masterminded the €3m Olympic ticket scam engulfing the Olympic Council of Ireland and Dubliner Kevin Mallon.
Detectives say Marcus Evans, 52, worth £765m, is being investigated on suspicion of being behind a suspected plot to sell tickets at up to four times their face value.
Ricardo Barbosa de Souza, who is leading the investigation for Rio’s civil police, said Evans was suspected of having ‘total control of these activities’.
Lawyers acting for Evans last night denied their client or his companies had any involvement.
Mr Barbosa told the MoS the investigation was ‘ongoing’ but would not say if police were seeking extradition. Evans lives in the UK and his firms employ 3,000 people. Married with two children, he is said to own a £9 m estate in Cornwall.
He said if Evans was ‘indicted’ it would be for touting, which carries a prison sentence of up to four years, and conspiracy, which has a sentence of up to three years.
Police seized 823 high-end tickets when Kevin James Mallon, 36, an executive of Evans’s firm THG Sports, was arrested in Rio on August 5, the day of the opening ceremony. He had been hosting a cocktail party for ticketholders in a hotel.
Officers said the tickets, for opening and closing ceremonies, as well as events such as the men’s 100m final, were being sold illegally for up to €7,000 each. One family had bought €70,000 of tickets, which were then voided, police said.
Mallon and his translator were detained, with court papers naming Evans as a defendant. ‘Kevin, we suspect, was only [Evans’] operator in Brazil to sell these tickets,’ Mr Barbosa said. ‘People bought tickets for the opening and other events, but we believe they were deceived.’
THG Sports was an authorised re-seller of tickets at London 2012 and the Sochi 2014 Winter Games but not for Rio 2016. Some tickets seized were marked as being for Olympic Council of Ireland, which denies any wrongdoing.
Asked if he would seek Evans’s arrest, Mr Barbosa said: ‘I cannot reveal that yet. Although he is not in [Brazil] he is being investigated.’
One of Evans’s firms was ensnared in a ticket controversy at the 2014 World Cup, when James Sinton, then chief executive of THG Sports, spoke voluntarily to police about suspected selling of illegal hospitality packages in Rio. Police seized 59 tickets. Twelve people were arrested two weeks later, including Ray Whelan, the British chief executive of Match Hospitality, which sells official FIFA hospitality packages. They were accused of running a £52 million ticket-touting ring but charges against Whelan were dropped last year. Ten people are still facing prosecution. Marcus Evans (Brazil) Promotions, Trade and Events Ltd was sued for £144,000 by a cargo firm which said it had been sold World Cup hospitality packages illegally.
A Sao Paulo judge ordered a refund, though Evans is appealing. In February, another firm claimed it had paid for 200 Olympic hospitality packages, which it claimed the company was not authorised to sell. It is seeking a refund and damages.
The Marcus Evans Group and THG said: ‘The very strong statement issued yesterday by Pro 10, the authorised ticket re-seller for Ireland, clearly set out the correct factual position.
‘They confirmed that the tickets with the THG representative in Rio, Kevin Mallon, were authorised tickets held on behalf of their clients and were not being sold by THG. Mr Mallon was acting as the collection point for their clients only.
‘There is no question of touting on the part of THG or any deception of any people that bought tickets through the authorised ticket re-seller process.
‘The tickets made available by Pro 10 to its clients were at face value plus the allowed allowance only. Tickets have never been sold illegally and we have no knowledge of tickets ever having been voided. THG have been advised by their local lawyer that there is no evidence to support any charges.’
They claimed the accusations were made by Rio’s Olympic organising committee, which it said had ‘an agenda’ against THG in order to support local hospitality providers.