Football
Associated Press 10y

Two agents implicated in scalping

#INSERT type:image caption:Thierry Weil said nobody from FIFA had been approached by police over ticket touting. END#

RIO DE JANEIRO -- Two official ticket agents were among four companies to have their remaining World Cup corporate hospitality tickets blocked or canceled Monday after being implicated in a scalping investigation.

FIFA's official hospitality provider Match said a ticket allocated to United States-based company Jet Set Sports and another to Nigeria's Pamodzi Sports were among those seized by Brazilian police last week. Police arrested 11 people in the operation and seized 131 tickets, at least 70 of them for corporate hospitality. It was unclear how many tickets had already been illegally re-sold. Re-selling World Cup tickets for profit is illegal in Brazil and breaks both FIFA and Match rules.

Tickets issued to Jet Set and Pamodzi for the semifinals and final have been blocked pending further investigations, Match said. Another company run by the Algerian man suspected of being the leader of the scalping ring had all its remaining World Cup tickets canceled.

Mohamadou Lamine Fofana was arrested alongside 10 Brazilians in the operation. Rio de Janeiro police said last week that Fofana had links to someone close to FIFA, who was the source of the unsold or unused tickets and who was staying at the Copacabana Palace Hotel in Rio de Janeiro. That's where senior FIFA and Match officials are also staying during the World Cup.

"Match Hospitality will be fully assisting the police in investigating the matter. It is important to highlight that so far no Match Hospitality staff member has been implicated with anything," Match said in a statement.

Fifty-nine of the tickets seized by police were issued to a fourth company, Reliance Industries Limited, which had bought a private suite at every World Cup game in Rio, Sao Paulo and Belo Horizonte and 304 hospitality packages worth $1.2 million, Match said. Reliance's remaining tickets were also blocked while Match investigates why those tickets were found in Fofana's possession.

Match said that if the companies don't cooperate, it "will cancel their tickets for the semifinal and the final too."

Match paid $240 million for the rights to sell corporate hospitality at the 2010 and 2014 World Cups. Of the more than 3 million tickets for the tournament, 445,500 tickets were allocated to Match, according to FIFA. Unsold or unused corporate hospitality tickets should be returned to FIFA to be made available to the public.

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