Shock Horror, according to a newspaper report, by Charles Sale, of the Daily Mail, Ipswich Town’s secretive owner Marcus Evans, who has been described as the biggest ticket tout in the world, is causing yet more of a stir by moving his headquarters next door to rugby’s Six Nations committee. The Marcus Evans Group, whose huge unofficial corporate hospitality offerings for big sporting events around the globe often include Six Nations matches, are now based not only in the same Simmons Court House office block in Ballsbridge, Dublin, but on the same first floor as the rugby organisation. The two operations being so close is sure to prove awkward for the rugby administrators. Six Nations chief executive John Feehan said yesterday: ‘The deal was done between the owners of the building and the Marcus Evans Group. We had no choice in the matter. But the six countries sell the tickets, not us.’ Evans’s controversial appointment as the official ticket supplier for Ireland’s national Olympic committee has still to be rubber-stamped by the IOC and London 2012, whose lawyers are already monitoring the Evans promotion of £100,000-plus hospitality packages for the showcase events at Stratford. Evans’ started his first firm, Associated Promotions, in the early 1980s to tap the gravy train of corporate hospitality. During Wimbledon fortnight when he served champagne lunches and strawberries and cream from a marquee in the garden of his own house in Somerset Road which overlooked the All-England Club.
The Marcus Evans group was among those being blamed for the swathes of empty seats at World Cup stadiums, which has blighted the tournament. South African police have been handed affidavits from seven companies outlining huge losses. They include petrochemical giants Sasol, who have singled out the Marcus Evans Group after buying tickets and hospitality packages that were later cancelled, as MEG were not FIFA accredited agents. Subsequent to an investigation by FIFA into the unofficial corporate hospitality operation being run at the World Cup, Karen Sorensen, was arrested in a police raid on her hotel in Johannesburg and accused of illegally selling World Cup tickets worth nearly £300,000. Sorensen, European events director with sports hospitality company THG (a sports division of Marcus Evans Group), had been in South Africa organising corporate events.
In February this year, Marcus Evans was selling corporate hospitality packages for the closing events of the London 2012 Olympics for nearly £100,000 – even though tickets are not due to on sale until next year. Politically he was believed to be a major contributor to the Liberal Democrats. However there are unconfirmed unreports that he severed his ties to the party in late 2008, as result of losses incurred in the financial crisis.
Does this help with questions into why Touts are suddenly front page news again???