Skip to footer

Greece, Serbia deny black market Olympic ticket charges

Olympic officials in both Greece and Serbia are refuting charges that members of their respective national Olympic committees sold tickets for the upcoming London Games with large price increases.

|
Mal Langsdon/REUTERS
Sebastian Coe (L-R), chairman of the London 2012 Olympics organizing committee, Hellenic Olympic committee President Spyros Capralos and Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, attend the torch lighting ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games at the site of ancient Olympia in Greece May 10.
  • By Associated Press

| Athens

Greek and Serbian Olympic officials deny they were involved in selling tickets to the London Games on the black market.

The IOC is investigating allegations in Britain's Sunday Times that officials and ticket agents in several countries were caught selling tickets for up to 10 times their face value.

The newspaper quoted Greek Olympic Committee President Spyros Capralos as telling undercover reporters posing as illegal ticket sellers that he had "pulled strings" with London organizing chairman Sebastian Coe to obtain extra tickets.

The Greek committee says the story is "untrue." It adds that Capralos' comments, which were filmed using a hidden camera, were "misleading" and "fragmentary."

The general secretary of Serbia's Olympic committee, Djordje Visacki, says national bodies are not in charge of the tickets.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Greece, Serbia deny black market Olympic ticket charges
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Olympics/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0618/Greece-Serbia-deny-black-market-Olympic-ticket-charges
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe