THE FAI WILL review the ticket situation around women’s international matches after last night’s historic World Cup qualifier win against Finland fell short of a capacity crowd.
Tickets on general sale sold out in 30 minutes when they were made available in July, but while the game attracted a record crowd of 6,952, it was short of Tallaght’s 8,000 capacity.
The empty seats were a result of ticket-holders not turning up on the day, a fact which has disappointed the FAI, who could have otherwise redistributed the tickets to fans who could attend. The Association expect that 5-10% of tickets holders won’t attend a game, be it a men’s or women’s international, though the number of empty seats at last night’s game exceeded that threshold.
The FAI will review the issue at the end of the window as part of their standard reviews of every international fixture.
A discussion of the price of tickets for the next qualification campaign may be part of that review. Tickets are currently priced at €10 for adults and €5 for kids, but an increase in price may incentivise ticket-holders to turn up on the day.
2,000 match tickets were set aside for 91 grassroots clubs, from whom the FAI received requests for more than 4,000 tickets. Images of clusters of empty seats caused frustration to fans at home who wanted to buy tickets but couldn’t.
Manager Vera Pauw and captain Katie McCabe led pre-game messaging on the importance of ticket-holders turning up on the day, and in a radio interview this morning, Pauw said those ticket-holders who didn’t show would be feeling “silly” after Ireland secured a World Cup play-off for the very first time by beating Finland 1-0.
Did the Co commentator not mention an incident on the M50? Not everyone who supports the Rep of lreland live within walking distance of the stadium in Tallagh
By the 2nd half the empty seat were not as visible and a 7pm kick off on a Thursday evening not ideal.
Great win all the same
Another fine mess.
Ticket Holders not turning up, think they mean touts. You’re not going to get walk ups at Tallaght like you would at the Aviva, so any touts thinking they’d make a killing on what could have been a sold out game probably ended up taking a hit. Delighted for them…
Absolutely disgraceful! Was looking for 6 tickets and couldn’t get any. To see that many seats empty is nothing new. They should be on a match by match basis!
Another example of the amateurish ability of the FAI to organise something.