Gaddafi gets tickets for the Olympics

Update – 15th June!!

After the furore yesterday Mark Adams, the IOC’s director of communications, said that Libya would not be given any printed tickets “until the current situation becomes clearer”. “To be absolutely clear, no tickets have been printed or paid for,” he said.

14th June — Is escaping from Libya as part of an Olympics delegation part of some new exit strategy? I put this down to stupidity rather than corruption though both are endemic within the IOC (and FIFA). But the lack of collective intelligence within the IOC can sometimes be inexplicable.

The Telegraph reports:

The Libyan regime has successfully requested close to 1,000 tickets to events at the London Olympics and the country’s attendance at the Games is being co-ordinated by the Gaddafi family.

The Libyan Olympic Committee is headed by Muhammad Gaddafi and the Government now fears a major diplomatic embarrassment over the attendance of regime figures.

The decision to grant Libya the valuable tickets will infuriate the million Britons who have missed out on attending over-subscribed events.

Government sources warned of a diplomatic crisis last night after it emerged that Col Gaddafi himself may try to disrupt the event as a publicity coup if he remains in power in 2012.

The organisers of the London Games are obliged to sell Libya tickets, after the International Olympic Committee failed to expel the regime despite international condemnation of its bloody crack-down on opponents.

Tags: International Olympic Committee, London Olympics, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Olympic Games