Questions over UEFA's use of priority list for NI matches

The Irish Football Association (IFA) moved to quell fans’ fury by assuring them that an additional 1,000-or-so tickets will be made available by UEFA (the body governing European football) for the opening game, after a wave of irate supporters came forward to say that they had unexpectedly lost out on tickets.

However, fans remained upset over the affair, with one describing their disappointment as “heart-wrenching”, and another veteran supporter saying he would even support boycotting the squad’s friendly games in protest.

The plan had been for the IFA to draw up a points-based priority system for tickets, based on how regularly fans attended Northern Ireland matches.

This was then to be sent to UEFA, which in turn sent out notifications of who had been successful with their applications.

Although the IFA said that it had indeed passed its priority list to UEFA, and this had been acted on, fans questioned how this could be, given that loyal long-time match-goers had lost out to much less regular supporters.

Ivan South, a 55-year-old bus driver from Claudy in Co Londonderry, was among those who had applied for tickets for all three of the upcoming matches – against Poland on June 12, the Ukraine on June 16, and Germany on June 21.

He only got tickets for the latter two, despite having missed just two home games in the past 20-or-so years.

One of these had been due to the fact his grandson had been born the same day, while the other was because the roads were closed and he physically could not reach the stadium.

His nephew – who he believes has fewer points than him – managed to gain access to all three games, and he said he knew of many low-level supporters who had been successful – a claim echoed by many others online.

There were about 50,000 applications for just under 30,000 seats for the three games.

Problems of allocation appear to have been most severe when it comes to the Poland game.

After new of extra tickets was announced, Mr South said that “1,000 tickets is only a small drop in the ocean”.

He said: “It’s so bizarre. I know UEFA came and said they allocated them according to how it was meant to go along.

“But how can that be? When you see the evidence and hear all the stories, it make you wonder: how can that be?

“Something wasn’t done right... Frustration is putting it very mildly. If you were in this house this morning when I opened that e-mail, I don’t think ‘frustration’ would have been the first thing in your mind.”

He said: “I honestly don’t know who to blame.”

His brother Victor is considering not returning to Windsor Park in protest.

A suggestion had been made online of a boycott of friendly matches.

If a bid for a boycott was backed by other supporters, Ivan South said: “I would be in favour. I would. That’s how strongly I feel about it. I’d never miss a game, but as a protest, and if everybody was prepared to back it... that’d suit me fine.”

Meanwhile Colin McAuley, a 33-year-old north Belfast taxi driver (who has not missed a home game since 2005) applied for tickets costing 55 Euro for all three games, but only got a ticket for the Ukraine match, priced at 105 Euro.

On the IFA’s Facebook account, two different fans had written that they had contacted UEFA on Tuesday and were told tickets had been allocated by a “random draw”, with no priority given.

Another fan e-mailed the News Letter to say the same.

The IFA said its priority list had been passed to UEFA on January 29, and UEFA issued a statement to say that this list had been used to allocate tickets.

Mr McAuley said fans had been notified that payment for the tickets could be taken from fans’ accounts from the start of February.

“That’s a bit of a fiasco there, whenever they were starting to take money on the 1st of February,” he said.

“What I think has happened is they’ve sent that list on deadline day. Somebody sitting in UEFA [dealing with] thousands of people, they’re hardly going to look round and go: He’s been to this match, he’s been to that match.”

He had booked his trip to France months ago, expecting he would be able to attend all three matches, along with other supporters.

“I’m just raging, you know,” he said. “It’s something we’ve looked forward to for so long.”

But he added: “It’s even more heart-wrenching for people who got none.”

IFA STATEMENTS:

Initially, the IFA said in a statement: “The Irish FA spent three months working with fans and supporters’ groups to create a priority list based on attendance at Northern Ireland matches over the past two qualifying campaigns...
“We are currently asking UEFA how the list was applied, particularly in relation to the game against Poland in Nice.”

It sent out another statement in the evening which said: “UEFA has confirmed that the loyalty scheme for all matches had been implemented according to the scheme provided by the IFA.

“However, for the match against Poland the demand of fans with the highest priority was higher than the number of available tickets in category 3, since UEFA also reserved a certain quota for ‘Follow my Team’ applicants.

“UEFA are now in a position to make available extra tickets to ensure that those Northern Ireland fans at the top of the Irish FA’s priority list will be able to attend the match.

“These tickets will be across all categories and those top-ranking fans who had missed out and who qualify for this new allocation will be contacted directly by UEFA towards the end of the month.”

Patrick Nelson, CEO of the IFA, told the BBC that the amount of extra tickets being allocated would be “very close to 1,000 or so new tickets”.

He said: “ Those tickets are really going to be focussed on those people who were disappointed for the Poland game, the ones who applied for a single ticket, the ones who are in our top priority category.”

He said that in fact UEFA would contact these people in the near future, and that a new “ticket portal” will be opened “specifically for that game, for those people”.

One ticket sales website on Tuesday night was showing at least 190 tickets for sale across the stadium for the Poland match, with tickets ranging from £197.42 to £1,417.71.