FAI still has almost 7,000 tickets to distribute for Euro 2016

Supporters who were only “partially successful” in this week’s distribution of tickets for Ireland’s group games at Euro2016 can apply along with those who missed out completely for tickets held back by the FAI with the express purpose of catering for disappointed fans.

The association has said that it has a total of almost 7,000 tickets to distribute amongst supporters who failed to get what they asked for in their initial applications.

There had been some confusion after it had previously referred to having “a total of 2,000 tickets” held in reserve for distribution to unsuccessful applicants, a figure that was repeated in various statements but it has since confirmed that this figure relates to the number of tickets it has for each of Ireland’s group games.

These 6,000 were not included in estimates of the total number of seats available to Irish fans. Another 832 tickets were secured by the association late last week.

This means that the association’s overall allocation currently stands at just short of 40,000 rather the 33,334 that has been widely mentioned.

Of those, some 32,502 were due to be distributed to supporters over the last few days with the other 832 coming too late to have been included. It is hoped that additional tickets will be secured as neutrals return or decline offers of tickets over the coming weeks.

The process of distributing the outstanding tickets will begin once Uefa confirms that the sale of the 32,502 has concluded.

The association has invited unsuccessful applicants to email it at euro2016@fai.ie with details of their original order.

With the majority of tickets having gone to members of what is referred to as “the football family” – primarily club and league officials from around the country and applicants allowed to order up to four tickets each – a significant number of fans with an established record of attendance at games, many of them season ticket holders at the Aviva stadium, missed out on some or all of what they wanted in the first round and these looks set to be the main beneficiaries in this “second round”.

Some, whose credit card payments could not be processed, may also be accommodated this time around along with a number who applied for Follow My Team tickets, effectively a passes that provide access to Ireland games for as long as the tream stayed in the tournament, but who missed out in the lottery for these and so got nothing.

Crucially, those who received tickets for either just the Sweden game or the Sweden and Italy games, may apply again; something that is likely to result in a flood of applications for Ireland’s second outing – the clash with the world’s top ranked side, Belgium.

Given that there are slightly more than 2,000 tickets to distribute for each game, the total allocation for that match in Bordeaux now stands at over 9,000 of the near 42,000 capacity. It is, however, still bound to be heavily oversubscribed.