A senior executive of world soccer governing body FIFA’s ticketing and hospitality partner could be jailed if he returns to Brazil to await trial for charges including money laundering, racketeering and illegally selling World Cup tickets.
Ray Whelan, a director at Match Services AG, who denies the charges, was arrested twice in raids around the July 14 World Cup final before being held in Rio de Janeiro’s Bangu Prison.
A panel of judges on the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court, the country’s highest appeal body, on Tuesday overturned a ruling allowing Whelan and others to be released from prison in August.
Whelan, 64, who had been ordered to stay in Rio as a condition of his release, left for the UK on Nov. 12 after a separate court allowed him to temporarily travel on condition he return within three months. A trial date has yet to be set.
The case embarrassed FIFA, which had been warning against illegal ticket scalpers for months before the start of the World Cup in June. Reselling tickets is illegal in Brazil.
One of the grounds for imprisoning the group was a claim by police that four of the arrested men, not including Whelan, offered World Cup tickets to officers investigating the case while they were being questioned.
Whelan has consistently maintained his innocence. As he prepared to leave for the UK, Match spokesman Andreas Herren said the Briton would return to fight the charges. It is not clear what would happen if Whelan does not return.
“He will return to Brazil and will comply with all the regulations,” Herren said.
Whelan moved to Brazil in 2012 to set up Match’s Brazilian operation and has been granted residency.
Police say they seized 83 hospitality packages and tickets from his room after wiretaps of his telephone recorded him negotiating ticket sales. Eleven others are accused of being part of the scalping ring, which prosecutors allege had been operating for four World Cups.
The chief investigator called Whelan a fugitive when he used a back entrance to leave the luxury Copacabana Palace with his lawyer. He handed himself in to authorities the day after Germany’s 1-0 victory against Argentina in the final.
Whelan tried to sell hospitality packages at the official price of US$24,750, Jaime Byrom, executive chairman of Match, said in a statement in July. The company says Whelan is innocent and he left the hotel to avoid reporters outside, not the police.
The law firm representing Whelan has been pushing prosecutors to share more evidence “in order that it may dismiss allegations against Mr Whelan.”
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