Of watches and tickets

Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) secretary Datuk Sieh Kok Chi, upset with the allegations contained in a letter written by vice-president Tan Sri Mohd Noor Rahim which undermined his reputation, has recently responded with a clarification. 

A copy of the letter was made available to loose cannon.

Dear OCM Elected office Bearers, There were some queries that the sale of the London 2012 Olympic Games Tickets, was not approved by the OCM Board, members of OCM, etc.

Please see OCM Highlights dated 20th March 2011, where a short report on the ticket sales was sent to all members of OCM Board, OCM Affiliates, Media, Sponsors, etc.

The matter was also reported in the 21st OCM Board meeting on 5th April 2011, as follows:

3.3 Tickets for London 2012 Olympic Games
3.3.1 Malaysians can book their London 2012 Olympic Games directly with OCM's Official Ticketing Agent by email to malaysia.london@aristeiasport.com before 22nd April 2011.

For your kind information, Olympic Games tickets sales have been carried out by the OCM Office since the 80s, without any problem, because the number of buyers were few. Thus it has become standard operating procedure to inform OCM Office Bearers, Affiliates, sponsors, etc., to place their preliminary orders, before the deadline.

As such, based on past practice over 30 years, there was no necessity to obtain prior Board approval to carry out the ticket reservations on 30th November 2010.

For the London 2012 Olympic Games, BAM, MNCF, and MSN ordered the most number of tickets.

As it is quite normal for Malaysians to order tickets at the last minute, and also due to high cost, most affiliates of OCM did not make any reservation. In any case, the allocation of tickets was only 2/3 of the total number ordered.

The report on the financial aspects of the ticket sales was handed to the Hon. Treasurer on 5th February 2013.

The purchase of the London 2012 Olympic Games tickets resulted in a deficit of RM31.32, due to the weakening of the Pound.

At the time of payment of the tickets (in 3 installments), the average value of the Pound was 1 Pound = RM4.95. During the Olympic Games and after, the value of the Pound had dropped to RM4.84. As a means of comparison, 854 tickets were sold by OCM for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games tickets, resulting in OCM having a surplus of about RM30,000/=

 For London 2012 Olympic Games, about 700 tickets were sold and OCM suffered a deficit of RM31.32. I hope the above brief report on the London 2012 Olympic Games Ticket sales would clarify the situation.

Loose cannon was also told there are two steps in the sale of Olympic Games tickets. The first is for the National Olympic Committees to sell to their sponsors, national sports associations and their officers. The deadline was 30th November 2010. 

The second was to the general public who had to purchase their tickets through the internet up to 22nd April 2011.

OCM for the first time appointed a ticket agent, based in London to sell the tickets to the Malaysians in London.

Loose cannon was also made to understand the children Swatch watches ordered by OCM were sold by the IOC Marketing Department and were meant to be used as premium gifts by the TOP and OCM Sponsors and not as Official Olympic Games souvenirs.

OCM was not a licensed official merchandiser of the London 2012 Olympic Games, thus was not permitted to sell any official LOCOG souvenir items.

The IOC Marketing Department requested OCM to sell the Swatch watches because as a TOP sponsor of the IOC, and IOC has to help them achieve some branding in publicity in other parts of the world. The official London 2012 Olympic Games souvenir watches, which were larger in size and somewhat more attractive and were sold at twice the price of the children watches. The offer came to OCM in August 2011 and the deadline was 30th September 2011.

Since OCM is not in the business of selling or dealing with watches, firm orders from Coca-Cola, Samsung, Milo, Astro Arena, etc were sought and OCM received firm orders of 220 watches at around RM135/= each.

The chronology of the events was as follows:

30th September 2011 - order of 220 watches made.
5th April 2012 - payment of RM27,940/= to Swatch. The payment was shown in the May 2012 accounts presented to the Board on 8th May 2012.
17th April 2012 - 220 watches received.
10th July 2012 - All 220 watches were sold and payments made (an individual bought one on 10th July 2012, but delayed payment until after he returned from London)

A total of RM29,492.00 was received, giving OCM a surplus of RM1,552.

OCM holds monthly Board meeting and monthly accounts are presented. Thus from May 2012, the Board were aware that Swatch watches had been bought and were sold.

Nothing was brought up on the purchase of Swatch Watches until the 14th OCM Board meeting on 2nd October 2012, 5 months after the payment was reported in the May 2012 accounts.