Did Regev accept tickets in exchange for photo?
Following multiple accusations that Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev bypassed existing regulations to secure match tickets for Saturday’s Israel-Argentina match in Jerusalem for her employees, MK Shelly Yacimovich (Zionist Union) initiated a parliamentary debate on the issue.
“A senior official in the Culture Ministry called me this morning and told me that the tickets were delivered in exchange for a promise that Miri Regev will take part in the celebrations,” said Yacimovich in her capacity as head of the Knesset State Control Committee. She also said the tickets were given to the ministry on condition Regev would pose for photographs during the match.
The committee addressed the matter of 200 tickets that were made available for purchase by employees of the ministry.
Employees of the ministry were limited to buying just two tickets per person as the number of available tickets was very low. Soccer fans complained tickets were very difficult if not impossible to obtain.
The match will take place at Jerusalem’s Teddy Stadium after Regev insisted the game be moved from Haifa to the capital at a cost of NIS 2.7 million.
The Culture and Sports Ministry decided to return the 200 tickets on Sunday after the complaints made by local soccer fans, but the question of who authorized the purchase to begin with remains unclear.
During the debate at the Knesset committee, the legal adviser of the ministry, Hadas Praver, claimed she only learned about the purchase from a collective email sent to all the employees informing them they may buy tickets for the match and did not approve it.
Stating that this would be gross violation of existing protocols Yacimovich said this is “very severe.”
The Culture Ministry said it utterly dismisses the notion that it supported the match, or handed over tickets to its employees to buy at full price in favor of media exposure for Regev.