State Papers: A scramble for soccer tickets to avoid ‘riotous situation’

Andy Townsend at Giants Stadium against Italy in the 1994 World Cup, File picture: Billy Stickland/Inpho

Irish embassy and consular staff scrambled to get match tickets for Irish soccer fans at the last World Cup held in the US over 30 years ago in order to prevent a “riotous situation”, according to newly released State files.

Confidential documents made available by the National Archives show Irish officials made enormous efforts in June 1994 to get match tickets for fans who had been left stranded and ticketless in Florida and Massachusetts after the sudden collapse of a British travel agent, Sportex, during the World Cup tournament.

Several months later, the Irish ambassador to the US, Dermot Gallagher, justified expenditure on the tickets as they had acted as “a vital safety net for Ireland and our image here, especially given the intense and daily media interest in the Sportex case”.

Mr Gallagher said the work of his staff and the consulates “represented one of the most effective and productive promotions of Ireland and her image during the World Cup”.

He also admitted it had been “a purely defensive and damage-limitation effort on our part”.

However, the ambassador claimed the diffusion of the potentially riotous situation involving Sportex fans in Florida “prevented the important enhancement of the image of Ireland, which was developed during the World Cup, [from] being seriously undermined overnight”.

Mr Gallagher said he and his staff were extremely grateful for the encouragement and appreciation they had received from the Department of Foreign Affairs and government ministers for their work.

However, he also stated that they should be “very loath to ask colleagues to take on a similar role in the future, given the huge and enormously time-consuming burden involved”.

The ambassador added: “While the burden was quite unreasonable, I must say that everyone involved did outstanding work in extremely difficult circumstances.”

Files from the summer of 1994 show that one consular official had recorded that the collapse of Sportex had “created a most serious and potentially riotous consular situation for the consulate”.

He outlined how Irish embassy staff had sent out requests throughout the US in an effort to secure an adequate supply of tickets for such fans.

The official said they had obtained payment for the tickets “with some difficulty” from supporters.

He revealed that they had approached the FAI about the matter, and had obtained 96 tickets at $25 each.

Other documents show the consulate general in New York made “extensive efforts” through a wide range of contacts to locate tickets for both the Ireland-Italy game, after receiving no allocation from the tournament organisers, as well as for the match against Norway, “for the disappointed Sportex fans”.

They highlight how staff in New York secured a total of 628 tickets.

Details of the efforts made by staff are contained in correspondence about accounting for official expenditure in relation to World Cup ’94.