Brazilian police in Rio de Janeiro have alleged a FIFA official with access to administrative areas at World Cup venues is involved in a scam that resold match tickets previously allocated to players.

The policie further revealed in a statement that the alleged official is not Brazilian and is only in the country for the mundial, stating further that the official was identified in investigations by his first name from telephone calls made to a ticket reselling syndicate.

The syndicate was aiming to resell about $90m worth of match tickets with the help of the alleged FIFA official according to the police.

FIFA Spokeswoman Delia Fischer stated that world football’s governing body would assist the police in their investigation though noted the alleged FIFA official may be employed to a third party FIFA partner instead.

”Given the number of third-parties that operate in and around the World Cup, the person may not even be employed by FIFA.” said Fischer in a statement, adding ”it is often easy to come to a conclusion about who is FIFA.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Rio police arrested 11 suspected ticket touts under the charge of selling tickets that could have been obtained from a FIFA contact as the tickets were the kind allocated to football federations, players and non-governmental organisations.

56 matches have been played so far at the World Cup, with the quarterfinal stage set to commence today in the matches between France and Germany followed by host nation Brazil against dark horses Colombia.