Montagliani takes lead at FIFA Ticketing for Russia 2018 World Cup

By Paul Nicholson

September 19 – It is one of the most important positions in FIFA if done correctly, and in the past one of the most corrupted. FIFA has appointed CONCACAF president and FIFA vice president, Victor Montagliani as chairman of FIFA Ticketing AG, the FIFA subsidiary that  controls and administers the global sale of tickets for the World Cup.

World Cup ticketing has for many years been the greyest of FIFA’s commercial practices despite attempts to tighten up procedures and restrict the movement of tickets via the black market; the whole process has been shrouded and clouded by controversy and corruption.

The issue has been the volume of tickets that have become available to touts and ticket agencies unofficially and sold for vastly inflated prices on the black market.

The source of these tickets is multiple with a vast bulk coming from national federation allocations which have been sold to touts rather than offered within their own countries. Many national federation presidents in the past have seen their World Cup ticket allocations as their own rights to sell on – a handy bonus. FIFA has consistently failed to crackdown on these activities with allegations that they have been used by FIFA’s executive as inducements for political means (and vice versa).

The margins for the sellers can be huge and FIFA and its agent MATCH Services have tried to restrict the ticket distribution to accredited sellers, but the situation was deemed so serious at the Brazil 2014 World Cup that MATCH executive Ray Whelan was arrested by Brazilian authorities and imprisoned for 24 days before eventually having his case dismissed without charges – it was very much a case of shooting the messenger in an attempt to solve a problem that had become an accepted working practice within FIFA.

MATCH are still FIFA’s ticketing partners and will work with Montagliani’s team to oversee ticketing policy and administration. To prove that the ticketing process is corruption free will be one of the challenges for Montagliani who was a member of FIFA’s reform committee and has been a globally vocal cheerleader for FIFA president Gianni Infantino throughout his own and now multiple corruption-alleged leadership.

Montagliani is joined on the board by FIFA secretary general Fatma Samoura, FIFA chief financial officer Thomas Peyer, FIFA chief commercial officer Philippe Le Floc’h, and FIFA director operational legal Jörg Vollmüller.

The composition of the board of FIFA Ticketing for the 2016 Brazil World Cup makes interesting reading. Members were:  Jérôme Valcke, secretary general of FIFA; Horst R. Schmidt, general secretary of the DFB; Sunil Gulati, US Soccer Federation president; Markus Kattner, deputy secretary general of FIFA; Thierry Weil, director marketing of FIFA; and Marco Villiger, director legal affairs of FIFA.

Valcke and Kattner have subsequently been fired by FIFA for breaking their terms of employment while Weil has left. Gulati, who informed on the Brazilian FA in the watch gift scandal in Brazil but seemingly failed to spot the considerably larger ticketing corruption, is still a member of FIFA’s top committee (now FIFA Council) but has not had his experience tapped for the new FIFA Ticketing board. Similarly Villiger is not on the new board.

Montagliani, who has a background in the insurance business, said in a CONCACAF press release: “I am honored for this appointment as chair on this Board and pleased to serve our FIFA membership to provide counsel for an important component to our core asset, the FIFA World Cup.”

The real test for Montagliani may not be ‘serving’ the FIFA membership in this capacity but keeping it straight. Something his predecessors on the board made virtually no attempt to do.

Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1710833171labto1710833171ofdlr1710833171owedi1710833171sni@n1710833171osloh1710833171cin.l1710833171uap1710833171