ZURICH, Switzerland (CelebrityAccess) — Soccer governing body FIFA was forced to pay a ticket broker $16.8 million after a Swiss court ruled that they had failed to deliver promised tickets to World Cup events.
According to the Daily Mail, U.S. ticket broker JB Sports Marketing took FIFA to court in 2015 alleging that the soccer organization failed to hold up its end of a deal between former FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke and JBSM’s Benny Alon to provide tickets for resale at marked up prices.
The suit alleged that Valcke agreed to split profits from the marked-up resale with JBSM, and was to be provided with a suitcase with $500,000 in cash in 2013 as part of the deal, the Daily Mail reported.
Valcke maintains that he never actually accepted the suitcase of money, and denied agreeing to any kickbacks, but was banned from football for ten years after he was accused of multiple unrelated violations of FIFA’s ethics rules.
The Daily Mail also reported that JBSM plans to pursue similar litigation to be compensated after they did not receive about 4,000 tickets for games at this summer’s World Cup in Russia. According to JBSM< they had been promised 1000 premium seats for the World Cup final alone worth as much as $40m.
