Fans spend €12m on Premiership pilgrimages

FOOTBALL-CRAZY Irish fans spent more than €12 million last year to see their heroes in action in the Premiership.

And with Roy Keane’s Sunderland joining the big boys this season in Europe’s most lucrative league, Ireland’s travelling army of football fans is on course to recruit more to its ranks.

Travel agents specialising in sports events estimate about 25,000 fans travel every football season. They are spending anything from €200 to €500 every weekend — or up to €12.5m annually — to watch their teams perform at Old Trafford, Anfield, Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium and Stamford Bridge.

Jack Sheill, of Cork-based sports specialists Dawson Travel, said: “The number of fans going over for Premiership games has grown massively over the years and next season it’ll be even bigger with Roy Keane’s Sunderland in the league.”

During the last football season, the company — one of many across Ireland — sold 3,000 package trips to fans, most of whom were Manchester United supporters followed by Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Glasgow Celtic fans.

Lured by what is being billed as the world’s best league, fans are paying €300 to €450 for flights, two nights’ accommodation and an official match ticket to Premiership games.

Since 1993, the Cork firm alone has seen business expand from sending 200 fans a season to Premiership games to 3,000 during the last campaign.

However, supporters of the Old Trafford club arealso doing it for themselves.

Dubliner Eddie Gibbons, secretary of the Ireland branch of the Man United supporters’ club, said members spent €210 each or €8,000 as a group per home game to watch their heroes.

“We normally take two coachloads on the Holyhead ferry and take about 50 to 100 people to every match,” he said. “We get out Friday morning, stay for two nights in a B&B and come back Sunday evening. It’s like a mini-break.”

The Dublin supporters’ club holds a number of season tickets from United and also gets 25 to 80 tickets per game so fans can make their fortnightly pilgrimage to Old Trafford. The group, formed in 1969, has 1,000 members and is one of 29 such clubs in the Republic alongside 70 in the North. Liverpool has 41 supporters clubs in the Republic and 37 in the North, making a total of 78 on the island compared with just 53 across England, where support is just as fervent.

“After the Champions League victory two years ago in Istanbul our membership ballooned,” said John O’Sullivan, secretary of the Cork branch of the Liverpool supporters’ club. “So it will be interesting to see what we manage when we take our membership for this season.”

Last year, the branch had 175 members and sent about a dozen supporters to every home game.

Martin Walker, from Sunderland Athletic FC, said support for the Wearside club in Ireland has been overestimated, but concedes the club has sold 100 season tickets to Irish fans for the campaign beginning in August. By comparison Man Utd has 700 season-ticket holders living in Ireland.