Top FIFA official admits reselling tickets

Bhamjee will resign from FIFA and CAF

A member of FIFA's executive committee has admitted selling World Cup tickets at three times their face value and has been ordered to leave Germany as soon as possible, world soccer's governing body said yesterday. Ismail Bhamjee of Botswana has signed a statement admitting selling 12 tickets for England's match against Trinidad & Tobago on Thursday for 300 euros ($379.9) each, three times the face value, FIFA said in a statement.

Bhamjee (62), the former president of the Botswana Football Association who has been a member of the executive committee for eight years, was told to resign from all FIFA World Cup duties. He was due to leave the executive committee next January after failing to be re-elected at the congress of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) in Cairo in January.

Although he is not a member of the World Cup organising committee, he would have other FIFA-related duties in Germany. Executive committee members are paid $500 a day expenses while on official FIFA duty. In addition they are paid $100 000 a year while members of the board.

Blatter reacts
"I am very disappointed about the conduct of a member of the FIFA executive committee," Sepp Blatter, the FIFA president, said. "In such a situation, FIFA acts immediately and firmly." FIFA said it had been presented with evidence of Bhamjee's actions by a British Sunday newspaper, the Mail on Sunday.

"As an immediate reaction to this behaviour, FIFA's emergency committee under the chairmanship of Blatter decided that Mr. Bhamjee had to immediately resign from all FIFA World Cup-related duties and leave Germany at the earliest possible moment," the statement said.
Bhamjee said in the same FIFA statement: "I deeply regret this incorrect act and apologise to FIFA for violating the relevant terms and conditions governing the sale of tickets for the 2006 FIFA World Cup." - Reuters