Syria Olympics chief 'refused visa'

The head of the Syrian Olympic Committee has been refused a visa to travel to London for the Games, it has been reported.

There had been suggestions for months that General Mowaffak Joumaa would be barred from entering the UK because of his connection to the Syrian military.

Due to his links to the regime of Syria's President Bashar Assad, the application has been refused, according to the BBC.

The Home Office said: "We are not commenting on individual cases."

A recent spike in violence by the forces of President Assad's regime has been seen in the troubled Middle East state.

The Home Office is responsible for carrying out background checks on behalf of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and advises the committee on whether an applicant is suitable for accreditation.

Exclusion decisions also have involvement from the Foreign Office. Particular interest would be shown in visitors from countries where there are human rights abuses. Officials are expected to keep a close eye on Syria.

Foreign Secretary William Hague has compared the recent massacres in Syria to those in Bosnia in the 1990s while Prime Minister David Cameron has condemned the killings as "brutal and sickening".

The Syrian charge d'affaires in London has already been expelled in the wake of mounting condemnation of the attacks. Britain has condemned the regime for its crackdown on opponents.

It is thought that Syrian athletes may receive visas because those of Olympic standard are not required to serve in the armed forces, but there is a question mark against General Joumaa and other officials.

©Press Association

Olympic ticket corruption claims probed

A probe is under way into claims of widespread corruption among foreign agents and officials supplying tickets to the London Olympics.

The International Olympic Committee is threatening a radical shake-up of the way Olympic tickets are distributed among its member countries after a Sunday Times investigation suggested officials were offering thousands of top tickets on the black market.

London Olympics chief Lord Coe was dragged into the row after the newspaper secretly filmed Greek national Olympic committee president Spyros Caprolos claiming he had successfully lobbied him for more premium Olympic tickets on Greece's behalf.

The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (Locog) has denied the claims.

The revelations have prompted senior politician Sir Menzies Campbell - a member of the Olympic Board which helps oversee London 2012 - to call for offending countries to lose future allocations of tickets. He told the BBC: "The sanctions should be not just that the tickets get cancelled for this Olympic Games but that tickets are not awarded on future occasions."

The Sunday Times newspaper has presented a dossier of evidence on agents and officials controlling the tickets for 54 countries. Thousands of the best seats at the top events - including the 100m final - were up for sale after being siphoned off from official supplies held by overseas national Olympic committees (NOCs), the newspaper said.

National Olympic committees are forbidden to sell their tickets abroad or to anyone who plans to resell them. But The Sunday Times said undercover reporters posing as envoys of a Middle Eastern ticket tout found 27 officials and agents who were willing to do business.

According to the paper, these included one country's official ticket agency which The Sunday Times claimed offered category AA tickets, the best seats in the stadiums, to the fake Middle Eastern tout for up to £6,000 each. The IOC confirmed they were investigating the allegations and will consider a complete shake-up of how Olympic tickets are distributed among member countries.

Regarding the evidence against Mr Caprolos, Locog said in a statement: "Seb received a letter from the Greek Olympic Committee (HOC), as he did from other NOCs, and responded saying that tickets had been allocated in accordance with the IOC's ticketing policy. There was no further contact - either formal or informal - on this subject."

Locog added that rules and regulations for selling London 2012 tickets to international fans were "clear and unambiguous". A spokeswoman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said it was awaiting the result of the IOC investigation before commenting.

©Press Association

Potential Olympic disease crisis has health officials on alert

©Reuters