Sports Minister William Todd Mc Sam resigned Tuesday after facing a scandal concerning his request for thousands of free tickets tickets for the 90 Minutos por la Vida (“90 Minutes For Life”) soccer tournament last Saturday. The tournament is designed to raise money for the Association Against Child Cancer.
Costa Rican daily La Teja reported Monday that Todd Mc Sam asked for 2,130 free tickets to the soccer tournament. The requested tickets represented a total loss of ₡10 million ($20,000) for the benefit.
On Tuesday, before the weekly meeting between President Chinchilla and her ministers, Todd Mc Sam announced his resignation.
“I left my resignation on the president’s desk. Before leaving the ministry, I will write a report about the management of the ministry in the past months and a second report about the petition for these courtesy tickets,” Todd Mc Sam told the press.
This will be the third minister to resign from the Sports Ministry during Laura Chinchilla’s administration. The first was Guiselle Goyenaga who was replaced by Carlos Ricardo Benavides after another scandal. Benavides was appointed to the Presidency Ministry and left his job to Todd Mc Sam last May.
According to Mc Sam, he requested the tickets in order to donate them to impoverished populations. However, he failed to provide the names of those people or their associations.
Laura Chinchilla insisted Tuesday that she will get to the bottom of the scandal. She plans to ask Luis Peraza, of the Costa Rican Sports Institute (ICODER), for an explanation about the additional tickets.
