UEFA started the process of taking payments on Friday afternoon and it is anticipated that this could run over the weekend and into early next week.
Today, an extra 832 tickets were released by UEFA to the FAI following a letter from the Association to European football’s governing body, in anticipation of an expected shortfall for supporters.
The FAI has 2,000 tickets in reserve, which were distributed by UEFA to all Participating National Associations. These tickets will be used to satisfy the demand from supporters with a proven match attendance record, who have missed out on securing tickets through the UEFA Portal.
More than 275,000 tickets for this summer’s European Championships in France had been applied for by Ireland supporters for an initial allocation of just 26,000 tickets (in total) for the three Group E games against Sweden, Belgium and Italy.
Successful canvassing for extra tickets from the FAI saw that allocation number rise to 32,502, with today’s release bringing that number up to 33,334.
The latest increase in allocation for Ireland supporters followed a letter by FAI CEO John Delaney to UEFA on Thursday, with UEFA giving assurances that it will continue to seek out extra tickets, which may be returned from UEFA allocations for each match.
John Delaney said today that the bid to free up more tickets for supporters will the number one priority for the FAI in the weeks and months ahead.
“We are continually in talks and correspondence with UEFA for more tickets, and this policy has proven successful up to now,” he said.
“There are still 2,000 extra tickets which we will draw on to try and satisfy those who have missed out on the current process.
“I’d like to thank UEFA for its work so far in freeing up more tickets, but we, of course, would like more.
“Republic of Ireland supporters will represent one of the biggest groups of supporters at EURO 2016, and accordingly we have a huge fan base to try to satisfy.”