The FAI will announce today details of the agreement it has reached with Uefa over the distribution of tickets to Irish supporters and how those who regularly support the team are to be prioritised in the process.
Around 800,000 tickets for the tournament go on sale through the Uefa website at 11am this morning with those interested having until January 18th to apply.
With demand likely to greatly outstrip supply, each association has been consulted by the tournament organisers on how the distribution should be handled and the FAI has said it will reveal today the approach it has recommended.
It should mean that regular supporters of the national team will have a better idea of how they are going to be helped navigate the purchasing process although the association is also bound to seek to prioritise members of its “football family”; generally club and league officials from around the country.
Overall allocation
It is not yet known what balance will be struck or how many of Ireland’s overall allocation for games might effectively be set aside for the prioritised groups..
The association is also due to reveal over the coming days which of the training bases on its shortlist it has decided to go with. Martin O'Neill and Roy Keane spent yesterday inspecting the ones at Versailles and Croissy-Sur-Seine, both very close to the French capital, where Ireland will play their first game of the tournament, against Sweden.
There had been reports that the FAI was considering Dijon, some 300 kilometres to the south of Paris, but this may have fallen by the wayside in the wake of the draw.
“I think we would be probably closer to the north than south now,” said Martin O’Neill minutes after seeing his side’s schedule, “particularly the game in Paris to start with, then Bordeaux then the game in Lille. So really I think that we would be looking at something maybe not a million miles from here.”
The Dutch had intended to use Versailles had they qualified while the Italians had been considering Croissy-Sur-Seine until last week at which point they opted for a location near the southern city of Montpelier, almost a thousand kilometres from the venue for their game against Ireland.
The association confirmed yesterday that the team’s second friendly game in March will be against Slovakia in Dublin on March 29th.
O'Neill indicated that the plan would most likely be to play another two between late May and early June with the possibility of a lower-key training game too before Ireland kick off their campaign against Sweden at the Stade de France in northern Paris on the 13th.
“We’ve got one pencilled in for May,” the manager confirmed, “and I probably wouldn’t mind another one if we could do it.”
O’Neill made little secret of the fact he viewed the draw as tough particularly in light of Italy’s inclusion as the Pot Two team. “We (he and Roy Keane) both came here thinking we’d enjoy the draw more than we enjoyed it in Nice and we didn’t.
Best side
“We seem to have two Pot One teams in our group. Belgium are considered the best side in the world certainly in terms of their position (they are currently number one in the Fifa world rankings). Italy should be a Pot One team. And Sweden know their way around the block. They have Ibrahimovic as well as a sturdy side. They just seem to know how to qualify and get through... so it’s a difficult one for us but we’ll look forward to it.
Asked about what it might take for Ireland to get out of the group and where the points might come from, he said: “The games we have are tough so starting to plan getting points here and there is, I think, a total waste of time. Let’s just got for it; genuinely take the games as they appear, Sweden first, and throw everything into it.”
He said that Ireland will aim to “give it a real go,” and that his own preparations will start right away with players from the group rivals to be watched in action over the coming months.
“We’ll get hundreds of DVDs, we’ll be well equipped and there’ll be no reason whatsoever for us to not be as prepared as any side can possibly be for the three games.
From a supporters point of view, the draw looks to have been a good one with getting around the three cities involved – Paris, Bordeaux and Lille – pretty straightforward even if some of the trips involved, most obviously the one from the south west to north east for the third group game is, at 800 kilometres, are going to be long.
The venues
Bordeaux: Matmut Stadium The Matmut Atlantique is one of three stadiums built from scratch for these European Championships and it was opened in May since when it has been used for league games by the local Ligue One side, a friendly international and some big club rugby league games.
Visually striking, with its many pillars inspired by the huge forests of the local region, the stadium was built at a cost of €183 million and will have a capacity of 42,000 for the tournament. Wales and Slovakia get things going on June 11th and Ireland’s game against Belgium will be its third of four group games after which it will stage a quarter-final.
The city has a large number of hotel rooms due to its own business (especially wine) and tourism trades but there should be plenty of scope to stay in the surrounding areas particularly down along the Atlantic coast which attracts huge numbers of visitors each year, many of whom stay in holiday lets.
Clearly it is a bit of a trek from there back to Ireland’s other group games but there is a very good transport infrastructure between Paris and Bordeaux with major road and rail connections (the TGV will get you there is three hours) as well as flights to the local airport.
Lille: Stade Pierre-Mauroy The Stade Pierre-Mauroy is a multi-sport venue that was built by the local government and opened in 2012. The local Ligue One side are based there and for this tournament the stadium will have a capacity of 50,100.
Its first game is the meeting of Germany and Ukraine on June 12th and it will host three more group matches, including Ireland’s against Italy on the 22nd, before staging a game in each of the first two knockout rounds.
Last September it staged part of the European basketball championships including a semi-final between France and Spain that attracted 26,922 spectators.
Due to its close proximity to Belgium, the city, which has a slightly different feel to it than many other similarly sized places France, is a former industrial centre which thrived in the late 19th century. Most of the mines and factories have gone now and Lille has been through some pretty tough times but been attracting growing numbers of visitors in recent years thanks, in no small part, to the fact that the Eurostar stops there.
The upshot is that there are more hotels now but also the back-up plan of a swift train journey to Paris (one hour), or Brussels (38 minutes) or even London (1 hour and 20 minutes) in the event that a room proves too expensive.
Paris: Stade de France Built for the World Cup in 1998, the 80,000 seat stadium in the northern suburbs of Paris staged the host nation's 3-0 defeat of Brazil in the final then and has been the home of the team ever since.
This time around, it will the venue for locals’ game against Romania, which opens the tournament, then three more group games, a round of 16 match, a quarter-final and the final.
For Ireland, the game against Sweden on June 13th, will be a first outing there since the controversial World Cup play-off defeat of 2009.
Most recently it was in the news after a terrorist attack on the friendly international game against Germany last month. Three people were killed and, of all the venues, security can be expected to be especially tight in Saint-Denis.
Obviously the fact that it is the French capital will make life a little easier for Irish fans seeking to get to travel then get accommodation in the general area. A major tourist destination, Paris has a huge number of hotel rooms and is planning to stage a long list of events to coincide with the tournament, including a fanzone that will hold 120,000 and have Europe’s biggest big screen.
