FAI cut price of season tickets

SOCCER:HAVING BADLY mistimed their rather ambitious attempt to cash in on the Celtic Tiger, the FAI stepped up their attempt to reconnect with the game's financially embattled supporters yesterday when they reduced the price of their season ticket scheme while extending it to include children in an attempt to put more bums on seats in the Aviva Stadium after the summer.

Clearly alarmed by the precipitous drop in numbers attending the friendlies against Norway and Uruguay, the association have cut the price of their cheapest season tickets to just €189 for a seven- match bundle that includes six international matches and the FAI Cup final. Kids attending with the adult can gain access to the same games for just €55.

Those who signed up last year will get a €40 rebate to take into account the reduced ticket prices midway through this season.

Given that the “season” will include a couple of key home qualifiers at the tail end of this campaign as well as, almost certainly, a friendly against England in either November or February, it seems likely to prove successful in luring back some of those supporters who had been deterred by the high prices, while also attracting more families to games.

John Delaney described the deal as “great value” and said that the new strategy had been made possible by the financial certainty which had been provided by the collective television rights deal struck last month between Uefa and its member associations.

Under it the association expect to net at least €40 million over the four years between 2014 and 2018, comfortably more than they would under the current arrangement whereby they sells their own home games and related commercial activities.

Delaney also announced that those supporters or businesses who had signed up to the famously expensive Vantage Club scheme are set to be offered the opportunity to buy additional ones for between €300 and €600 per annum, depending on the level.

The gesture reflects the difficulty for the association that has been created by their failure to come anywhere close to selling out their flagship 10-year premium ticket programme. Those who did sign up at various stages of the process often did so on significantly different terms and discounts offered later had, in many cases, to be retrospectively offered to those who did so at the outset.

At more recent games, though, tickets for the tier have been made available through sponsors for little more than general admission ticket prices and yesterday’s move is aimed, it seems, at addressing what must be a fairly high degree of dissatisfaction amongst those who paid anything approaching the original asking price.

The England game, it appears, will now go ahead in November if neither side is in the play-offs, and February otherwise, while the Italy game looks increasingly likely to be played in Brussels on June 7th.

Delaney said, meanwhile, that he would speak directly to “the members” at the AGM about the pay cut he has taken before discussing it with the media and he insisted the future of the national team’s manager is a matter for the association’s board but that the issue of a new contract has yet to be discussed.

Asked if the findings of the Moriarty Tribunal had made him reluctant to continue taking the contributions from Denis O’Brien towards the cost of employing the Ireland manager, Delaney said: “Absolutely not”.

MORE than 2,000 tickets for next week’s Europa League final at Lansdowne Road went on sale last night through Ticketmaster.ie following Braga’s decision not to take up the club’s full allocation.