Irish fans start to receive Euro 2016 tickets

There was joy for some yesterday but the anxious wait goes on for others, after Uefa began its France 2016 ticket allocation to Irish supporters.

Uefa started taking payments from credit and debit card accounts on Friday and it is anticipated that the process could continue over the weekend and perhaps even into early next week.

It was also announced yesterday that the FAI had sourced a further 832 tickets for Irish fans, bringing the current total allocation for the group games against Sweden, Belgium, and Italy in June to 33,334.

The association also has a 2,000 allocation from Uefa in reserve which it says it intends to distribute among fans who miss out in the current round.

With Irish football’s governing body describing the acquisition of more tickets as its “number one priority” in the coming weeks and months, chief executive John Delaney said: “We are continually in talks and correspondence with Uefa for more tickets, and this policy has proven successful up to now.

“There are still 2,000 extra tickets which we will draw on to try and satisfy those who have missed out on the current process.”

Delaney added: “I’d like to thank Uefa for its work so far in freeing up more tickets but we, of course, would like more.”

That demand far outstrips supply is evident from the figures: A total of 70,482 Irish supporters requested nearly 275,000 tickets through the Uefa ticket portal. That list was then sent to the FAI which worked through it to prioritise fans based on their support for the team, at home and away. That amended FAI list was then returned to Uefa which, at lunchtime yesterday, began taking payments from successful applicants.

Meanwhile, with Northern Ireland fans up in arms following a Euro tickets fiasco earlier this week, it is now the turn of the Republic’s group opponents Belgium to point the finger at Uefa for what angry supporters say was a conspicuous failure to apply a loyalty system put in place by the Belgian Football Federation.

The result was that some occasional supporters of the national team were pleasantly surprised to receive tickets for all three group games in France while fans who have a record of following the Red Devils home and away — and who would therefore have accrued maximum loyalty points — received precisely none.

Against the backdrop of the official Red Devils supporters club branding the ticket allocation “a scandal” and amid calls for a complete redistribution, the Belgian FA said it was seeking urgent talks with Uefa in a bid to resolve the problem.