There’s an old saying, a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil
and it causes a tornado in New Mexico.
The arrest of Pat Hickey in
Brazil in relation to alleged ticket touting may not at first glance set the political
storm chasers agog here in Ireland. But hold
on a minute, there’s 2 issues that we need to consider
1.
Shane Ross our sports minister seemed somewhat
unperturbed 10 days ago when the first arrest of the THG agent occurred. Ross built a reputation as being strong on
corporate governance. He travelled
eventually for a showdown meeting to Rio with Hickey and was seen going in
alone to meet late at night with Hickey. There didn’t seem to be many officials
from his department close to hand. By
all accounts he had a bruising experience as his opponent tried to put him in
his box. The best he could do was to
refer the matter to the same Attorney General that he sidelined a few weeks ago
over abortion.
Ross has had a hard time coming to grips with
his sports brief. By all means this was supposed to be the fun bit of his
politics. It’s nothing of the sort. How he will respond to the growing controversy
and how much support he receives from his cabinet colleagues may well determine
how other issues in cabinet play out in the coming months.
2.
Hickey is in Brazil and faces questioning and
possible charges. But there are others
named in warrants. Some of those may be
in this jurisdiction and Ireland may receive extradition requests. An extradition warrant is only allowed if we
have the same crime on our statute books. And here’s the rub. Ticket touting is not illegal here. So it’s unlikely an Irish court will
extradite for ticket touting, while the charges of a cartel translate as a
criminal gang? Well cartels here are dealt with under competition law. Is competition law considered criminal? Well
I’m no legal expert but it remains for a court to decide if a cartel is under
Irish law a criminal conspiracy akin to gangland.
And the reason why we need to move fast on
this is looming pretty quick. Next year the decision on the location for the
2023 Rugby World Cup will be made. Ireland has a strong bid, however the name of the company at the heart
of the scandal THG has built its business about securing tickets for the
corporate sector around events like the Rugby World Cup, FIFA World Cup and
Olympic Games. We need to legislate on
ticket touting before the IRB decides where to go in 2023.
So if its real sport you want this week, go
no further than Thurles and to be precise after the final whistle blew last
Saturday evening. A young female Kilkenny fan enters on to the pitch at full
time and puts a comforting hand on the shoulder of a distraught Pauric Mahoney,
the player who moments previously had missed the chance to tie up the
match. There still are honourable and
decent people in sport, somewhere!
