Demand for Europa Cup final tickets outstrips supply

SOCCER:THE INITIAL ballot for tickets for this season's Europa League final at the Aviva Stadium has been heavily oversubscribed.

Around 10,000 people have applied for what would amount to some 19,000 tickets – whereas only 7,000 have been put on sale to Irish residents.

FAI officials said yesterday both they and Uefa were pleased with the scale of the response to the ballot which, they said, was similar to the levels of interest shown in last year’s final in Hamburg at the same stage of the process. Those who have been successful in their applications will be informed within two weeks.

The case brought by two players – Brian Shelly and Steven Gray – for the winding up of Bohemians has been listed for a hearing on February 7th, it was confirmed yesterday. The players, two of 10 who have not been paid for seven weeks now, have taken the action in an effort to secure money due to them since the end of November.

The club is still hoping to avoid the case ending up in court by resolving its dispute with all of the players over the coming days.

Sligo Rovers manager Paul Cook was last night named as the Airtricity/Soccer Writers’ Association of Ireland Personality of the year for 2010. The Englishman enjoyed enormous success with the club over the course of the season with Rovers winning both the League and FAI Cups.

The team also finished the league campaign very strongly and are widely reckoned to be one of the main contenders for this season’s title. Cook beat off competition from two of his players – Richie Ryan and Joseph Ndo – as well as Michael O’Neill, Gary Twigg and Pat Devlin to win the award.

Sligo’s FAI cup final hero Ciarán Kelly was one of three contenders for the goalkeepers’ award at last night’s event but along with Peter Cherrie of Dundalk he lost out to Shamrock Rovers’ Northern Ireland international Alan Mannus.

The Tallaght club, meanwhile, has signed Ciarán Kilduff for the coming season. The young striker, who had been a member of the Rovers youth ranks before joining UCD at the start of the 2009 campaign, scored 19 goals in all competitions last year.

“I’m delighted to be going back to Shamrock Rovers, and am really looking forward to working with Michael (O’Neill),” he said. “I think this is the right time for me to be playing at a club like Rovers.”

The Irish team finished third at yesterday’s Fifpro winter tournament for out of contract players in Oslo with Mark Leech scoring the only goal of their play-off game against Sweden at the city’s Vallhall arena.

Earlier, Liam Kelly’s side had been a little unfortunate to lose 2-1 to Finland in their opening game. Sean Kelly scored a penalty and there were claims for a second spot kick but it wasn’t awarded and the Finns grabbed a winner.

“It’s been good, very competitive,” said PFAI general secretary Stephen McGuinness afterwards. “Hopefully the scouts and managers have been impressed.”