The Scottish Football Association have declined to comment on John Delaney's assessment of their handling of the ticketing situation for Ireland's game in Glasgow as "a joke". However, supporters' group You Boys in Green has again dismissed the attempt to shift the blame for the problem to the SFA as little more than an attempt to divert attention from the FAI's own persistent failure to implement a proper and transparent ticketing system .
Met obligations
A spokesman for the SFA said last night it stood by its statement of the previous evening in which it made clear that it had met its obligations to the FAI by allocating it 3,200 tickets for the November 14th game at Celtic Park and added in relation to Delaney's comments that: "If he's going to have a go, he can have a go, we're not going to keep responding."
YBIG, on the other hand, responded to a number of claims made by Delaney in an interview with Ray D’Arcy on Today FM in a fairly robust way, ridiculing his claim that it would have required the “wisdom of Soloman,” to distribute the number of tickets available for fans without problems. They also dismissed the offer of a new person to liaise with, saying all that is needed is the sort of ticketing system they proposed to the association 12 months ago in the wake of previous problems.
"In today's appearance," the supporters' group says in its statement, "Mr Delaney was keen to stress: 'we will get it right next right round'. In the last four years Irish fans have experienced acute ticket concerns for at least four games; Scotland, Estonia, Andorra and Slovakia. Supporters have been raising concerns over the lack of clarity over ticketing for several years. How many times do they have to be let down by the Association before change is implemented?"
Blamed staff member
Delaney, for his part, blamed an unnamed member of association staff for the “mistake” that led to an as yet unconfirmed number of regular away supporters missing out and said he had set about trying to rectify the situation since being alerted to the problem directly by fans via email last Friday night. YBIG, however, are scathing regarding his characterisation of the situation.
“The CEO accepted that fan loyalty should be rewarded,” they say, “and that there were ‘mistakes’ on the behalf of the FAI. The use of the word ‘mistakes’ indicates that this was a simple oversight. YBIG data shows that more the sheer numbers who have been impacted by this. How can the association explain the numbers of fans who attended every away game in the last qualifying campaign being rejected? This is a complete failure of the allocation methodology in place.”
Delaney described the SFA’s handling of the situation as “unmannerly” and said he now had some concerns regarding the safety of Irish fans who had bought tickets in home supporters’ sections. He questioned why, when such seats were available they hadn’t been cordoned off into an expanded away section but the SFA argues that their belief is that the game would sell out and so it would make little sense to deprive their own fans of tickets so as to accommodate visiting supporters.
The supporters’ group does now appear to have a fundamental issue with this, arguing that while it would have been ideal for everyone who wanted to travel to get a ticket, their real gripe is with how and on what basis those tickets received from the SFA were distributed.
As for the safety concerns, the group has cited the game in Zilina in 2010 as one of those at which fans experienced severe problems and yet Delaney famously bought so much drink for supporters on the train from Bratislava to the town (after it had been prematurely stated that the game would be staged in the Slovak capital) that some fans were barely able to walk to the stadium.
Persistent suspicion The association’s chief executive then personally involved himself in the distribution of tickets without any attempt to adhere to a system of any kind. On radio yesterday he denied getting a personal allocation of any kind but there is a persistent suspicion that the lack of a far more transparent system of the sort sought by the supporters’ group suits him rather well and You Boys In Green criticised him last night for his failure to attend the meeting held to address the current situation on Tuesday afternoon.
There was some good news, for the FAI in relation to the Scotland game yesterday with Everton manager Roberto Martinez reporting that the knee injury sustained by Darron Gibson on the training ground is so slight that he should be fit for Saturday's game with Swansea.
“Darron did pick up a knock in training on Wednesday,” said the Spaniard. “But I don’t think it is any concern. We will assess it. But I expect him to train so I don’t think it is anything to worry about.”
The news will be welcomed by Republic of Ireland manager Martin O'Neill who is already without Wes Hoolahan for the qualifying game in Scotland and is waiting to see how Glenn Whelan progresses in his recovery from a fractured leg sustained against Germany.
