The disgraced John Delaney

John Delaney has sent legal letters to Irish newspapers over their coverage of the Olympic ticket-touting controversy.

A&L Goodbody, the corporate law firm, has written to a number of national newspapers and media agencies on behalf of the FAI's chief executive. Media outlets including The Irish Examiner, The Journal.ie and the Irish Independent are all understood to have received a letter.

On Sunday night, police in Rio de Janeiro said that they wanted to interview Mr Delaney as part of their investigation into the alleged touting of tickets for the Olympic Games.

Mr Delaney, who is vice-president of the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI), was named in a warrant with Willie O'Brien, acting president of the council, and Linda O'Reilly, personal assistant to the president. The court order authorised the seizure of their passports, but none of the three were in Brazil. There is no suggestion of wrongdoing on the part of Mr Delaney, Mr O'Brien and Ms O'Reilly.

On Saturday police seized the passports of Dermot Henihan, general secretary of the council, Kevin Kilty, its treasurer, and Stephen Martin, the chief executive. All three have since been interviewed by the police and have been told they can now return home. There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing on the part of the three.

It is understood that Mr Delaney's letters stated that he does not have an executive role in the OCI. His lawyers also said that he is a voluntary and unpaid member of the executive committee of the organisation and had no role in any decision-making when it came to the OCI's ticketing licence for the Games.

They also suggested that media outlets have been covering the story without seeking comment from Mr Delaney, who has not spoken publicly about the ticket-touting controversy since the story broke more than three weeks ago. He spoke to a radio station on Tuesday discussing the death of former FAI president but did not make any comment on ticketing.

The FAI have not responded to repeated requests for comment since Mr Delaney was named in the warrant on Sunday.

Mr Delaney attended a late-night meeting of the OCI board at the weekend, which outlined the council's response to the matter. He did not speak to the media afterwards.

The council has said that it will appoint an international accountancy firm this week to conduct a review of the ticketing arrangements for the Rio Games.

It added that earlier this week it had appointed Espion, a data security company, to secure, copy and seal the OCI server and all OCI electronic data

Carroll Moran, a former high court judge, has been named as chairman of a government inquiry to examine allegations of Olympic ticket-touting. The corporate governance and funding of the OCI may be examined as part of the inquiry.

Patrick O'Donovan, the junior sports minister, suggested that Mr Delaney could be asked to speak to the non-statutory investigation.

"We're not really minded to be naming individuals, but we would ask and we would fully expect that anybody who has any level of knowledge in relation to this issue will fully co-operate with Mr Moran," Mr O'Donovan said.