After originally receiving 26,000 tickets for Ireland's Euro 2016 Group E ties, the FAI last night revealed that they had secured another 6,502 tickets for the games against Sweden, Belgium and Italy.
FAI receives extra allocation of tickets for #EURO2016 - https://t.co/aTt9tMCWVN pic.twitter.com/XIaL0ImMbr
— FAI (@FAIreland) January 26, 2016
Ger Keville from the supporters group YouBoysInGreen spoke to Newstalk Lunchtime today about the news and how it should affect the fans hoping to travel to Paris, Bordeaux and Lille. Irish fans have applied for over 275,000 tickets for the three games.
"It's quite a significant amount of tickets", Keville told Newstalk Lunchtime. He also spoke about how fans with known records of going to games home and away should be given priority when the tickets are allocated.
"We would argue that there should be universal scheme that should reward fans for their loyalty which they have in the likes of Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England. Over here it's not as transparent as that."
"The tickets that the FAI received, they put 30% of aside for fans and the other 70% goes into the football family. I think the 30% for fans is a pretty low figure. I have been speaking to fans from Northern Ireland and Wales in the past week and when I told them that they basically laughed." Keville added that in those countries almost 90% of the tickets go to the fans.
Keville stated that he hopes the "football family" receives tickets for the tournament but it should not be 70%. "The wider football family has to have an allocation of tickets, but similar to the likes of England, Scotland and Wales I dont think it should be 70%".
Sweden were also given an added allocation for the Irish game and received a slightly bigger allocation than the FAI did. Ireland begin their Euro 2016 campaign against the Swedes in Paris on June 13th.
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