Only 8,000 tickets made available in Paris

[RonnieB]

I have fingers, toes and um ears crossed.

[ArdeeBhoy]

But that was the FAIs position when they met the FFF last week before applications had really started to arrive for the away leg.

What is the closing date for applications?

For the Supporters Clubs it was today. Ours applied for dozens, but getting mixed messages from The FAI. So no change there. Though for once it's more down to the French, who understandably want as many of their own fans in their own stadium....

[elroy]

8500 less the 800 that is a guaranteed allocation to Abbey Travel or so the paper said yesterday anyways.

[Newryrep]

8500 less the 800 that is a guaranteed allocation to Abbey Travel or so the paper said yesterday anyways.


Elroy is that 800 as in approx 10% of the away allocation or 800 irrespective of what the allocation is ?

[reder]

Elroy is that 800 as in approx 10% of the away allocation or 800 irrespective of what the allocation is ?

800 irrespective of the allocation and id say they can actually take as many as they want. They are offering away end tickets with every package they are selling. If the current ones sell out, im sure they will charter another flight or 2 and take extra tickets.

[Raheen]

From the RTE website (http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2009/1025/delaneyj.html):

Delaney speaks of ticket demands
Sunday, 25 October 2009 20:57

FAI Chief Executive John Delaney has promised to continue efforts to secure more tickets for Irish fans for the away leg of the World Cup play-off in France, with the game in Croke Park set to sell out this week.

Delaney was speaking to Robbie Irwin on RTÉ Radio 1's Sportsbag on Sunday morning, and his revelation that demand will far outweigh supply will come as no surprise to Irish fans.

He admitted: 'We've been inundated with calls since last Monday, but it is a great problem to have. In terms of the home game, I'd say if we had 100,000 tickets for the game we wouldn't have enough.'

He added: 'But what we are doing is being very loyal to the people who bought a ticket for the Montenegro game so anybody who purchased a ticket for that match is entitled to a ticket to the French game.

'So we have had thousands of ticket stubs arriving into headquarters in Abbotstown and we're working through those.'

The Waterford native believes all tickets for home fans will he snapped up in the coming days due to the what he describes as 'unprecedented' demand.

He said: 'I would expect next week that we will be announcing we are sold out. We looked for all the clubs and leagues within the game to apply for tickets, which we generally, do and the level of interest is really unprecedented.'

Earlier this week, the French Football Federation confirmed that they would not be giving the Green Army anything extra than their entitled number of tickets [8,500] for the game in Paris.

Delaney believes they are doing so to avoid what happened in 2004 when at least 30,000 Ireland followers created a memorable atmosphere and inspired the team to a point.

But Delaney has not yet given up hope of obtaining more.

He insisted: 'We looked for more than 10% from the French FA, they have only given us 8,500 tickets, which is their entitlement.

'We keep asking them for more tickets because we want to get as many Irish fans as possible into the game.

'We are going to keep pressing them. There seems to be a policy from the football side of the French FA that they don't want many Irish fans in the ground. I think they fear the Irish fans and the atmosphere they will create in the ground.'

Typical of the type of bullsh*t that Delaney comes out with. He knew on Thursday evening that the FFF had sold out. :mad: The stadium will be at full capacity for the game, i.e. no possiblilty of increasing the number of seats so why bother with the meaningless statements.

[Nolimits]

Anyone any idea of how long this kinda thing usually takes?

[eaststand85]

Typical of the type of bullsh*t that Delaney comes out with. He knew on Thursday evening that the FFF had sold out. :mad: The stadium will be at full capacity for the game, i.e. no possiblilty of increasing the number of seats so why bother with the meaningless statements.

Wonder did the French put all the tickets on sale though or maybe they held some back? Seemed to be some surprise that they sold out so quickly.

[Gonk1976]

Wonder did the French put all the tickets on sale though or maybe they held some back? Seemed to be some surprise that they sold out so quickly.
I think they sold out so quickly because touts snapped them up.

[elroy]

Elroy is that 800 as in approx 10% of the away allocation or 800 irrespective of what the allocation is ?

I think its 800 guarantted tickets irrespective of the overall allocation. They were only offering the 22euro tickets however, whereas the fai application had three different tickets, 22e/42e/82e.

[elroy]

Typical of the type of bullsh*t that Delaney comes out with. He knew on Thursday evening that the FFF had sold out. :mad: The stadium will be at full capacity for the game, i.e. no possiblilty of increasing the number of seats so why bother with the meaningless statements.

Is the game sold out already???

[DannyInvincible]

Is the game sold out already???

According the the FFF, they've sold all tickets they placed on general sale in France; around 49,500. The remainder of French tickets - about 20,000 - have been reserved and sent off to sponsors, clubs and various other related bodies around France with 10% of all tickets available being to allocated the FAI to distribute amongst Irish fans; that amounting to 8,500. Now, maths was never my strong point, but by my calculations, those totals combined don't actually equate to the total capacity of the Stade de France; over 81,000. There are still over 3,000 tickets unaccounted for.

The below is what I'm basing my info on, an online translation from http://www.fff.fr/billet/530936.shtml:

End of the sale to the public
The Federation Française de football informs that all tickets offered for sale to the public this day to know 49.500, found preneurs.8.500 tickets have been available to the Irish Federation for its supporters. The remaining seats 20,000 will be proposed, as well as the usual to the families of F.F.F. (leagues and districts, driver, clubs and partners).

With a peak of 30,000 tickets sold in three hours, the FFF saved one of the fastest sales of its history. This reflects a meteoric mobilization of the French public occasion double confrontation in the Republic of Ireland.

The FFF have either rounded their figures off, or they still have tickets available they could surely allocate to the FAI if necessary.

[ArdeeBhoy]

Fair play, but greed aside, why would the FFF let us have more tickets??
Unless of course they win the first leg....

[elroy]

Fair play, but greed aside, why would the FFF let us have more tickets??
Unless of course they win the first leg....

The capacity of SDeF is circa 80k, im sure if say over 65k of the tickets sold are to french, they wont be too concerned about giving us an extra few thousand. I think they were just very keen to avoid the scenario last time where more than 25k of the ground was Irish.

Am please god dont let them win the first leg, that would be a disaster. Worse case scenario I want us to run them close. I would hate if we had a Scotland V Netherlands scenario from the 06? playoffs but Im confident that wont happen under Trap.

[Newryrep]

The capacity of SDeF is circa 80k, im sure if say over 65k of the tickets sold are to french, they wont be too concerned about giving us an extra few thousand. I think they were just very keen to avoid the scenario last time where more than 25k of the ground was Irish.

Am please god dont let them win the first leg, that would be a disaster. Worse case scenario I want us to run them close. I would hate if we had a Scotland V Netherlands scenario from the 06? playoffs but Im confident that wont happen under Trap.

Thought Scotland won the first leg 1-0 (I know they were chinned 6-0 in the return)

[elroy]

Thought Scotland won the first leg 1-0 (I know they were chinned 6-0 in the return)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/internationals/scotland/3275085.stm

Your correct and right.

In that case, Id love their first leg result, think we'd had a great chance then.

[jbyrne]

Typical of the type of bullsh*t that Delaney comes out with. He knew on Thursday evening that the FFF had sold out. :mad: The stadium will be at full capacity for the game, i.e. no possiblilty of increasing the number of seats so why bother with the meaningless statements.

unfair. the fai have tried before and suceeded in getting us more away tickets. 19,000 were made available for our last game in paris and i'm pretty sure we were allocated far more than the 10% we were entitled to in bari (although not ultimately required). as stated elsewhere only 49,500 went on public sale in france so there may well be other tickets the fai can get their hands on

[ArdeeBhoy]

We were allocated up to 9000 for Bari, which we didn't take up.
Total tangent, but anyone know how many Irish were at that game (heard varying figures between 3600 & 5400)?


If we don't get a 0-0 or 1-1 in the first leg, maybe there'll be a few drop-outs?
10% chance of a win in the home leg, so maybe 8k will be enough?

[Claret Murph]

I could not understand why anyone would drop out , but yer come to think of it I can now see the sort of fan you are talking about .

[shakermaker1982]

They must have plenty of money to burn if they'd not come over having booked flights and hotels!!

[eaststand85]

Any indication from the FAI ticket office when they're going to let people know about ticket allocations for Paris?

The match is three weeks from today and based on previous experience it will take a couple of days for them to generate the invoices, another day or two for them to be delivered, they will then have to allow a week for people to return the invoices or pay online and finally another couple of days for delivery of the tickets.

This all means it's going to be tight anyway and presumably will require the whole process to kick off in the next 24 to 48 hours?

*Edit: Have e-mailed the ticket office and will post any reply here.

[jbyrne]

Any indication from the FAI ticket office when they're going to let people know about ticket allocations for Paris?

The match is three weeks from today and based on previous experience it will take a couple of days for them to generate the invoices, another day or two for them to be delivered, they will then have to allow a week for people to return the invoices or pay online and finally another couple of days for delivery of the tickets.

This all means it's going to be tight anyway and presumably will require the whole process to kick off in the next 24 to 48 hours?

i will drop them an email and see if they have any idea. i will tell them i will post something up here which may save them getting lots of other emails

[Newryrep]

i will drop them an email and see if they have any idea. i will tell them i will post something up here which may save them getting lots of other emails

I dropped them a mail about sending the home leg and away leg tickets in the same delivery - saves on postage.

[MariborKev]

Add in the postal strike for those in the UK.......

[paul_oshea]

they generally use DHL anyway so it shouldn't be a problem to the UK.

[SuperDave]

they generally use DHL anyway so it shouldn't be a problem to the UK.

usually royal mail for me.... except a couple of years ago (the last postal strike) when they used DHL signed for delivery.... great when there is no-one at home all day! I ended up having to pick the tickets up in Merrion Square the day before the match which obviously isn't an option any more.

:rolleyes:

[Desyf]

As far as I know they are not answering emails at the moment.

Too busy apparently.
Must be something on.

[blobbyblob]

Any indication from the FAI ticket office when they're going to let people know about ticket allocations for Paris?

The match is three weeks from today and based on previous experience it will take a couple of days for them to generate the invoices, another day or two for them to be delivered, they will then have to allow a week for people to return the invoices or pay online and finally another couple of days for delivery of the tickets.

This all means it's going to be tight anyway and presumably will require the whole process to kick off in the next 24 to 48 hours?

*Edit: Have e-mailed the ticket office and will post any reply here.

Home match has to be sorted first and that will be closer the end of the week before they are finished with the stubs. Really bad time for them to start experiementing with a ticket stub system but there ya go.

Then we get onto the away leg lotto. Were going to be very tight on supply for that one.

[Newryrep]

they generally use DHL anyway so it shouldn't be a problem to the UK.

up north Paul they use Royal mail although I suggested DHL because of the strike

[jbyrne]

Home match has to be sorted first and that will be closer the end of the week before they are finished with the stubs. Really bad time for them to start experiementing with a ticket stub system but there ya go.

Then we get onto the away leg lotto. Were going to be very tight on supply for that one.

did you hear this officially?
surely the situation with home tickets is far clearer and people more or less know where they stand on that one. on the other hand thousands have booked flights etc for the away leg in the hope of getting a ticket and surely that should be given priority

[blobbyblob]

Yep - I did.

Home match is the priority and will be sorted later this week. Obviously its been complicated by the stub promise system.

As regards the away game, unless you go through the official Abbey Travel route where a ticket is guaranteed as part of their relationship with the FAI, you book your travel at your own (calculated) risk basically which is fair enough.

[ArdeeBhoy]

They must have plenty of money to burn if they'd not come over having booked flights and hotels!!

Aye but you could pay as little as £100/€120 on that and then have to pay the same again to get a ticket which would be enough to put off the fairweather contingent.

[horsebox1977]

As a block booker who has applied for the Paris game - Anybody know when we can expect to hear if you will get tickets to the away leg?

[jbyrne]

As regards the away game, unless you go through the official Abbey Travel route where a ticket is guaranteed as part of their relationship with the FAI, you book your travel at your own (calculated) risk basically which is fair enough.

obviously we all know the risks. i am not looking for a ticket guarantee but the sooner i know if i have been successful or not the sooner i can go looking elsewhere if i need to. my point was that block bookers and monty stub holders know a ticket is coming to them but those who applied for away tickets do not

[Junior]

Aye but you could pay as little as £100/€120 on that and then have to pay the same again to get a ticket which would be enough to put off the fairweather contingent.

Absolutely - Not to mention the cost of your digs (most can be cancelled in advance without cost) plus booze/food and general spending money.

If (God forbid) the tie was dead after the first leg - fairweather fans may well cut their losses. To be honest I dont think this will be the case though

[Desyf]

"fairweather fans"

I hate that term.

[paul_oshea]

What do you call them des?

[Junior]

fcukin ar$soles then - Im not precious about it.

[Desyf]

What do you call them des?

See above.

That'll do me

[eaststand85]

Any indication from the FAI ticket office when they're going to let people know about ticket allocations for Paris?

The match is three weeks from today and based on previous experience it will take a couple of days for them to generate the invoices, another day or two for them to be delivered, they will then have to allow a week for people to return the invoices or pay online and finally another couple of days for delivery of the tickets.

This all means it's going to be tight anyway and presumably will require the whole process to kick off in the next 24 to 48 hours?

*Edit: Have e-mailed the ticket office and will post any reply here.

Got the following reply this evening:

From: FAI Ticket Office <ticket.office@fai.ie>
Date: 28 October 2009 18:03
Subject: Ticket Information


Thank you for contacting the FAI Ticket Office,

Due to the high volume of enquiries regarding the upcoming internationals against France in November,
There will be a delay in replying to email enquiries
Ticket Information for these fixtures is available at our website www.fai.ie

We appreciate your patience and apologize for the delay

The FAI Ticket Office

[jbyrne]

Got the following reply this evening:

From: FAI Ticket Office <ticket.office@fai.ie>
Date: 28 October 2009 18:03
Subject: Ticket Information


Thank you for contacting the FAI Ticket Office,

Due to the high volume of enquiries regarding the upcoming internationals against France in November,
There will be a delay in replying to email enquiries
Ticket Information for these fixtures is available at our website www.fai.ie

We appreciate your patience and apologize for the delay

The FAI Ticket Office

i sent an email yesterday asking when we would hear about away tickets and got a response last night to say that we will be told by the end of the week.

i also asked was demand greater than supply but didnt get a response to that

[reder]

i also asked was demand greater than supply but didnt get a response to that

I'd say that they dont know that yet as they are processing through the applications. Most I know who have applied are looking for extras. One lad who usually gets 15-20 has applied for 25. All I need is 2 and im happy.

[Polster]

fcukin ar$soles then - Im not precious about it.


We had over 30k fans in Paris the last time, thousands of fans that went to Italy and America, and the whole country partying and supporting from home, how many of them are hardenned fans?

Get over it guys, everyone is entitled to support in whatever way they like, the more the merrier, if we only ever had the seasoned supporters, we would miss out on some incredible atmospheres, like that in Paris before.

[jbyrne]

I'd say that they dont know that yet as they are processing through the applications. Most I know who have applied are looking for extras. One lad who usually gets 15-20 has applied for 25. All I need is 2 and im happy.

if lots of people applied for more than they need its just going to drag out the whole process. lads who dont get offered any tickets initially may be subsequently offered tickets after those who get offered more than they need decline them

[Polster]

if lots of people applied for more than they need its just going to drag out the whole process. lads who dont get offered any tickets initially may be subsequently offered tickets after those who get offered more than they need decline them

Hopefully, although it would be a lot easier and fairer if people just requested what they actually needed.

[Desyf]

We had over 30k fans in Paris the last time, thousands of fans that went to Italy and America, and the whole country partying and supporting from home, how many of them are hardenned fans?

Get over it guys, everyone is entitled to support in whatever way they like, the more the merrier, if we only ever had the seasoned supporters, we would miss out on some incredible atmospheres, like that in Paris before.

Very true, but I think the "hardened fans" would be a tad miffed if the event junkies, fairweather fans etc got tickets ahead of them.

They are definitely a nuiscance when that happens, but I agree with what you're saying.
The more the merrier for a great atmosphere.

[Bluetonic]

Get over it guys, everyone is entitled to support in whatever way they like, the more the merrier, if we only ever had the seasoned supporters, we would miss out on some incredible atmospheres, like that in Paris before.
Well said.

Give me a fair weather supporter over some 'hardened fan' who thinks the world owes him a living.

[Junior]

We had over 30k fans in Paris the last time, thousands of fans that went to Italy and America, and the whole country partying and supporting from home, how many of them are hardenned fans?

Get over it guys, everyone is entitled to support in whatever way they like, the more the merrier, if we only ever had the seasoned supporters, we would miss out on some incredible atmospheres, like that in Paris before.

Listen - Im not one of these guys that bangs on about 'Real' fans or 'barstoolers' or 'fairweather' fans for that matter. The leprechaun outfits wouldnt be my cup of tea either. Im happy enough to support in my own way and I accept that there are 'fans' in all guises - I dont think I need to 'get over' anything. It was an off the cuff remark - nothing meant by it really.

For the record I'd take 300 in Latvia atmosphere on a par with 30,000 in Paris - The more doesnt always make it the merrier.

[jbyrne]

For the record I'd take 300 in Latvia atmosphere on a par with 30,000 in Paris - The more doesnt always make it the merrier.

have to agree here. although there were 30,000 in paris at the 04 game i actually thought the atmosphere wasnt great. 8,000 in stuttgart 2006, 6,000 in holland 00 and circa 8,000 in nigatta wc02 made far more noise imo

[Doire Abu]

Ibaraki wc02 and sofia this year would be highlights. Bratislava 07 would be a low point, result wise and too much stag do antics by some.