Fans going the extra mile on Rocky Road to Poland
Up to 20,000 Irish fans are planning to travel to Poland this summer for the football extravaganza, the majority without tickets.
The FAI yesterday quarried another 700 tickets for Irish fans for each of their three group games against Croatia, Spain and Italy, but Mr Delaney accepted they had no hope of meeting demands for the tournament.
Irish skipper Robbie Keane joked last night: “I think I need about 600 of those.”
The FAI will explore all avenues for additional tickets, but including corporate and travel agent commitments, it will distribute fewer than 10,000 tickets per game.
“Anecdotally, we are hearing that up to another 10,000 Irish supporters will make their own way to Poland, but most will be without tickets,” said Mr Delaney.
Ireland has already received 16% of stadium capacity for its matches in Poznan and Gdansk, equating to about 6,000 tickets per group game. “Following discussions with the FAI, Uefa has agreed to release 2,300 additional seats for Irish supporters over the three matches,” said Mr Delaney. “When the FAI receives further details from Uefa in the coming days, these seats will be allocated to the list of supporters who have been already been given passwords to register through the FAI portal on UEFA.com.”
He said fans were going to extraordinary lengths to secure tickets — including scouring newspapers to find out where his son’s football matches were on.
“I’d like to thank UEFA for working with us to meet the massive demand from Irish supporters,” said Mr Delaney. “The tournament is set to give the whole country a real lift and, with demand for tickets so high, we are happy Uefa has been able to assist us.”
The FAI is confident that more than 35,000 fans will be at the Aviva Stadium tonight for Ireland’s friendly against the Czech Republic.
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