Pat Hickey facing up to seven years in prison over Olympic ticket scandal

Hickey is facing three charges and up to seven years in prison.

President of the Olympic Council of Ireland Pat Hickey is facing charges of facilitating ticket touting, formation of a cartel and ambush or illicit marketing as a result of the investigation into alleged illegal sale of tickets at the Olympic Games. Footage of Hickey being arrested by Brazilian police in Rio de Janeiro emerged this afternoon, while a number of details about the investigation were revealed at a press conference. Hickey had his passport, plane tickets and accreditation seized by Brazilian police, while he was also taken to hospital as a precaution after the arrest. A leaked email sent to Hickey purporting to be from the Irish Olympic legal counsel also emerged on Wednesday afternoon, an email which includes a line about Sports Minister Shane Ross, saying he needs to be "put back in his box". PRO10 Sports Management, the Irish Authorised Ticket Reseller (ATR) for Rio 2016 Olympics, meanwhile, have issued a statement in relation to allegations made against PRO10 in its dealings as Irish ATR. You can read the statement in full below. In light of reports within the media of allegations made against PRO10 in its dealings as Irish ATR, we would like to again clarify that PRO10 has at all times acted properly and fully in line with ATR guidelines. The allegation that a portion of the OCI’s Family and Friends tickets were being made available by PRO10 for general sale is utterly untrue and completely without any foundation. PRO10 is appalled that allegations are being made against the company without any attempt to ascertain the facts. The Brazilian authorities seem to be dealing with these extremely serious allegations through the media and no contact has been made with PRO10. Notwithstanding, PRO10 utterly rejects any insinuation that they have been involved in selling tickets at inflated prices, ticket “touting” or “scalping”.  We abhor such practices. We will vigorously defend our reputation and will contest fully any of these unsubstantiated and false allegations.  We are already taking legal advice on how we deal with these unfounded allegations. PRO10 has acted with integrity and has been dragged into an issue in relation to ticketing simply because of its status as ATR. All tickets sold by PRO10 as the Irish ATR for the Rio 2016 Olympics were sold fully in line with the ATR guidelines.  These tickets were made available for sale through the authorised ATR process and were sold to legitimate customers of PRO10 at face value plus the allowed ATR reseller fee.