Tickets for Euro 2012 soccer championship went on sale today but Irish fans face a two-month wait before they will know if they have been successful.
The tickets for the event, taking place in Poland and Ukraine next summer, went on sale on uefa.com but are not a first-come, first-served basis and the application window will remain open until the end of February.
Tickets for both the Republic's and England's matches are restricted to their official fans groups, with special log-ins being supplied by their football associations.
In the event of the Republic's matches against Spain, Italy and Croatia being over-subscribed then ballots will be held with the most loyal fans getting preference.
UEFA said 32 per cent of the overall stadia capacity have been reserved for the supporters of the 16 finalists.
A UEFA statement said: “Each team will receive 16 per cent of the overall net stadium capacity, or a minimum of 6,000 tickets, for each of their group-stage match.
For quarter-finals and semi-finals, the number of tickets reserved is 5,000 per participating team, and for the final it is 9,000 per participating team.”