Greek Olympic President Rubbishes Ticket Scam Claims

June 18, 2012

Spyros Capralos, Greek Olympic president, has ridiculed claims that he boasted he could obtain extra London 2012 tickets for sale on the black market.

The Sunday Times’ allegations of a ticket scandal involving 27 Olympic officials and agents included the claims that Capralos, the president of the Hellenic Olympic Committee (HOC), has been caught on camera boasting he had “pulled strings” with London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe to allocate his country more top tickets to the Games that he could sell on for a profit.

On Monday the HOC insisted the allegations were “untrue and misleading” and all sales had been conducted by an agent.

A statement on their website read: “The whole process was totally transparent and in accordance with the laws of the Greek State. Therefore, there can be no issue on creating a ‘black market’ by the HOC which did not buy any tickets, whatsoever.

“The journalists of the Sunday Times, violating all principles of journalistic ethics, pretended to be representatives of a ticket selling company, and had even created a fake webpage. The whole discussion concerned the Winter Olympic Games Sochi 2014.

“The video recording was made with a hidden camera, in a misleading way too, while the publishing of the statements of the HOC president, Mr Spyros Capralos was fragmentary and a patchwork of answers, made in a way that served the authors of the article.

“Even in the published statements of the HOC president – which we would like to stress once more that they are a product of a patchwork – as every reader can notice, there is nothing reproachable. On the contrary, the way of operating and the allocation of the tickets of the Olympic Games is explained.”

The International Olympic Committee’s ethics commission are investigating all the claims.

On Sunday, Denis Oswald, a member of the IOC executive board and the London 2012 co-ordination commission chairman, insisted anyone found guilty of selling London 2012 tickets on the black market would be banned from any future role in sport.

He said: “These people should no longer belong to the Olympic movement.”