Today should see the start of celebrations for Republic of Ireland fans hoping to travel to France this summer for the Euro 2016 finals.
Indications from UEFA suggest that notifications will start today to fans who have been successful in the ticket lottery which was amended from pure chance to include a scoring system based on season tickets, home and away match tickets bought through the FAI over the past three years.
The FAI sent back a ‘scored’ list to UEFA at the end of last week and that is believed to be the basis on which the tickets will be allocated.
At present there are 32,502 tickets assigned to Irish fans. They will be distributed among the 70,842 individual fans who put in requests for a total of 275,000 tickets over the three matches.
Success will spark a mad dash to secure transport and accommodation across France.
Failure at this first hurdle will mean those intent on being there will have to find innovative ways of securing tickets, a challenge which has proved well within the capacity of the most die-hard fans down the years.
Fingers crossed…
