Warner may be expelled from Fifa for World Cup ticket scam

Fifa's controversial vice-president, Jack Warner faces a fight to avoid expulsion from football's world governing bodyfor his role in the World Cup ticket scandal. Warner, of Trinidad and Tobago, has been identified in a report by the auditors Ernst & Young as having sold World Cup tickets at up to four times their face value. The Independent brought the case to public attention in January.

In their confidential report to Fifa, the accountants said: "We can confirm that tickets included in orders under customer reference 201498572 [Mr Jack Warner] were transferred or resold into the secondary market in breach of the 2006 Fifa World Cup Germany ticketing general terms and conditions."

The issue will now be dealt with at Fifa's executive committee meeting in Zurich on Friday. A spokesman who confirmed the reports exist said the matter would be discussed "at the request of Jack Warner". According to the Ernst & Young report the auditors were called in on 20 June when the boss of a Swiss travel firm, Antonio Gallicchio, complained to Fifa that he had not received a number of World Cup tickets, with a cover price of €100 [£68], that he was paying €400 each for.

He had bought the tickets from a Florida-based agency called Kick Sports but Ernst & Young traced the source of the tickets to Warner. They were able to establish that the Fifa vice-president had bought 180 tickets on his credit card at a face value of €100 each, and they were then bought from Kick Sports by Gallicchio for €400 apiece - €54,000 euros [£37,000] more than face value.

It is not the first time Warner has been involved in World Cup ticket controversy. In March, Warner's fellow executive committee members allowed him a reprieve despite ruling he was guilty of a clear conflict of interest. Warner, a special adviser to the Trinidad and Tobago FA, was accused last month by Fifa's ethics committee of violating their code of conduct after his family's travel company, Simpaul, secured exclusive rights to sell his country's entire World Cup ticket allocation. Warner told Fifa that he and his wife had sold their shares in Simpaul and had no idea he had violated any rules.