March 26th, 2005
Rep. of Ireland Matches (What a difference 3 days make…72 little hours)
As the Republic of Ireland football team face Israel tonight, I have a ticket to see them play China this Tuesday in a friendly at Landsdowne Road. Now, it wasn’t the lure of China as opposition that made me buy a ticket. It’s two things. One - you had to buy the ticket as part of a double ‘package’ and the other fixture is against the much more interesting opponent Italy in August.
Two - I’m obviously not in Tel Aviv today for the World Cup Qualifier but when Israel return here for the home leg in June, how many of the real fans will get tickets?
The FAI dish out these double friendly packages, (”placebo packages” as I like to think of them) and the only people who buy they them are genuine fans of the beautiful game. Come June, the chances of me and countless others getting a ticket will be up there with Northern Ireland’s chances of qualifying for the damn World Cup. The stands will be awash with corporate types and company block bookings - people who only go to these matches because they can and aren’t interested when we play teams like China in friendlies.
And it’s not just friendly packages, it happened with the allocation for the Swiss match too. The ticketing system of the FAI is flawed and biased so until it changes, most fans will have to settle for attending friendly matches against C-list teams.
Anyway, I’ll be watching later in the hope that we thrash them by so many goals that the result of the June home game won’t really matter so I won’t care if I’m there…c’mon the lads!