Personally I don't see it at all next year, certainly not in the first half.

UEFA will want to get full allocation of home fans into stadiums and the trade off may be a ban on away fans. Last thing they would want is a spike in cases in a country because of qualifiers. 

I think (hope) there will be for the September games onwards. The Euros will have fans travelling so if they happen without issue, then why not a few away fans for other games.

I'd then say following on from that September should have 75%-80% fan capacity.

Would a Serbia/Azerbaijan away double header later in the year be anyway practical travel wise? 

Edit: Map tells me Azerbaijan is the far side of Georgia, didnt appreciate that

How many Season ticket holders are there?

Did we ever receive a refund for that game we missed?

If not maybe Season ticket holders could be given first option

Completely Random to a certain extent afaik. 

I expect there to be home fans allowed in for the games in March, likely ST holders only which makes sense.

 In Sept , hummmm too far away at this moment in time .

I will not be booking anything away from home for sure for a while just yet .

Serbia is halfway to Azerbaijan from Ireland so it'd be a bit handy if that was a double header alright. 

Season ticket holders got emails a good while ago, the last game will be credited against to the ticketmaster account and offset against the cost of next season ticket.

I think we got credit for that game against the next season ticket we purchase.

I doubt there will be any fans at the March games, not in the Aviva anyway. Vaccination won't start here until January and I'd be surprised if it would be completed before the summer.

Think March we probably get limited home fans.

By September, maybe increased home fans but no aways.

By November, maybe away fans but likely not.

Is there any country that are actually listening to them now? They predicted the vaccine would take 18 months to start with. It took less than a year. They overestimate every single thing, things will move on once rates drop the pressure is being put in the government by IRFU for 6 nations in February already and Gaa are too 

Good point regarding IFRU and GAA. At least the league and 6 Nations start first so if the lobbyist rugby and GAA heads convince government to let fans in then it should apply to soccer  (who i imagine have less sway with government)

Didn't  realise we had Mystic Meg on here and if they said it would be less than a year and it wasn't you'd be lashing them for that. 

Are you mystic meg yourself for knowing what I would do? I said they overestimate which they have done and that was just an example. Is that ok?

The way the Irish are behaving we won’t get crowds back at games until 2030 for goodness sake. I’m not being smart when I say this I’d genuinely harbour as much hopes of getting to an away game in a spot like Portugal or Serbia as I would attending a game here in Ireland. 

They let 25,000 attend the Belgrade derby in June don’t mind next year. 

How do you know they overestimated  ? Nobody knew exactly how long it would actually take but good lad you criticise them for it  and say that's why people aren't listening to them. 

What do you mean by pre paid?

End of the day though, unfortunately it is just not as simple as let ST holders only in when capacity is restricted.

Gotcha.

The later games depend if and how many vaccines the EU approve.

If they approve 2/3 in Jan-March then there will be a race amongst the companies to produce and distribute as quickly as possible to the paying governments/public.

The more vaccines available the quicker the general public get them and we can get back to normal.

Ideally you get some kind of certificate that shows you got the vaccine that helps with travel etc

Agreed

Or vaccinate fans to allow them to go to games? 

Nah not yet, too far away to be honest. Usually I would have but going to wait a few months and see how things play out

I've booked accomodation with free cancellation anyway. No rush on booking the flights just yet. 

They play most of their games in the Estadio Da Luz in Lisbon (also at Sporting Lisbon's ground as well) but have played elsewhere in Portugal in previous campaigns. 

65k capacity. Would you reckon we'd take the full 5 or 10% allocation for this if allowed travel? 

They seem to play the big games in the group in Lisbon but move the minnows around between Porto and faro. Depends on how they see us I suppose. 

yep majority of the bigger games were they'll get the fans in they tend to play in the Estadio Da Luz, so I'd say there is a high chance of the ourselves and Serbia to play them there.

But they have also played in Estadio Jose Alvalade  (Sporting's ground) they have also played bigger games in Estadio Dragao which is Porto's ground.

Yup 5% minimum

400 for Luxembourg then 

I read somewhere that Scotland got 1,500 for a qualifier there and then an extra 1,000 because of demand. Don't think Luxembourg have a great following and it's the last game so they/us could be out of it. 

Yeah only game recently where they hit 8k was against Portugal in November 2019.

6k for Serbia in September 2019.

Apart from that seems to be around 2.5k -3k for games.

Can't see the locals flocking to watch us play.

Yeah, I had a look at their attendances in their last few campaigns and they have only had full crowds for the games against box-office teams from pot 1 ie France, Portugal, Spain etc while attendances against teams round our level have been well short of that, usually just over half full. 

As you say, we're not exactly box office at the best of times so can't see our visit selling out, especially as they'll most likely be out of the running by then anyway (whatever about us!).

So I can't see this being a repeat of Glasgow 2014 or Copenhagen 2017.

They might have their new stadium open by then. So we'd be getting a massive 469 tickets... 
 

How the fook does it cost 80 million to build a 10k stadium. They must be awash with money. 

I think you can be fairly sure the flights will go ahead - The risk would be not being able to get into the game. 

Yeah there is this too. Qarabag have had to play recent European games in Turkey.

Whatever about booking accommodation on free cancellation wouldn't be touching flights at the moment

The thinking behind booking so early is that with the gradual reopening of  stadiums cross Europe. But i do understand with the current  rules with no away fans and with this game over 10 months away it was a risk that we were willing to take but i suppose we will have a clearer picture next March / April so only time will tell if this risk pays off or not.

All I'm booking at this stage is accommodation on free cancellation. There's no way, I'm going to pay out hundreds of pounds up front for flights if I don't know if I'm going to get to use them. I'll wait till the spring when, as you say, we should at least have a much better idea of what's going to happen, then I should be able to make a decision on whether it's worth booking flights. 

Took a chance on Luxembourg mainly because of price and flight times 

Finnegans is the better of those pubs and I'd imagine where most Irish will go. 

There is two others, the shamrock and the aforementioned O'Malley. Both of those pubs are as Irish as any other pub in Baku, not one Irish drink on tap

We were the only two people in one of them, until a cat walked in. The other was popular with British oil workers, can't remember which was which. 

If I get the vaccine before the Portugal game I’ll go to that one.

I don’t mind booking last minute and paying a bit more.

But I’m not keen on booking anything now. 

 

not sure about the loads going forward ,  there would of been in normal circumstances  but I doubt airline schedules will return to precovid levels anytime soon  .

 

Like I said it for me it was more for convienence and price  - its a calculated risk

It's not here that the issue necessarily it's how things are in Azerbaijan that may be the issue. Away games attendance  are likely to be on a country by country basis 

Quick and easy from Paris, Brussels, Charloi, Frankfurt and Hahn, be fine. 

If you got a direct one booked, then that's a different story but certainly people won't find it difficult to get there. 

Eurostar from London an option also. 

 

Same as that really . I am happy to pay more for flights as long as i know i can go and sit in the stands at the game otherwise it's just a gamble with your own money as flights will go i think with you on them or not . Are people prepared to pay for a private jab and at what cost ?

I don’t think you should I be too worried to be honest. If any thing game is the best chance for away fans getting into stadiums and it’s 60k plus stadium and next October. Much better chance than Luxembourg with a tiny ground. Hopefully all will be grand for Portugal, Azerbaijan and Luxembourg but the biggest risk for them flight is probably if the conflict kicks off there again but it seems ok since September anyway.

We were in the Hops Bar that has a load of football scarves and a pool table and a black cat hopped up on the bar counter and scared the sh*te out of my mate when he was sitting at the bar. Have a couple of photos of the poxy cat on the bar counter and lying down on the floor interrupting our pool game. We were the only ones drinking in the bar as there was no one around. 

This before you arrived or after

Both 

Two of the lads went onto a nightclub and there was nothing but prostitutes and rich Saudi lads in there. 

Hope ta fook you're right. 🙏

They are. And nothing is cheap in Luxembourg either. 

If by some miracle all the old and vulnerable are vaccinated by the end of February and icu cases and deaths fall to zero, then surely everything will be back open in March and you can book a trip to Serbia? 

In order for this to happen by end of Feb you need the EU to approve the Oxford vaccine AND others that can we stored in a normal fridge in the next week or so and then let the drug companies race against each other to get the vaccines to the paying governments/public. 

But even then it will take more than 2 months! 

P.S feels good to finally post after years of lurking.

What I can answer is that when you do get to your first away you will be hooked and feel welcome by all. 

Hopefully that's in Baku all we can do for now is live in hope. 

I’d say hold off booking flights to Baku at the minute but there will be no worries about tickets in a 60k plus stadium you will be grand as we are guaranteed 3k tickets. Hopefully things will be ok by next October to travel. The conflict seems to have settled down so fingers crossed all will be grand. I’d say most agree that Tbilisi has been the best trip of the last few games and Baku is certainly the trip that most are looking forward to already. No harm booking accommodation if you want to but make sure it’s free cancellation. Have a 7 bedroom apartment booked myself for only €270 for two nights.

The 2nd visit under MoN in 2017 was the most I reckon. The place seemed jointed with our fans compared to other visits in recent years.

Maybe 1500 - 2k. Could be wildly wrong though.

I’d say it was closer to 1000-1500 in 2017 although it was more than last year anyway. The fact we have never played Azerbaijan gives it more of a novelty factor since we had Georgia a good few times recently.

Just saw that, silly money in some places, would imagine most hotels are closed so they've nothing up yet on the usual sites. Will wait for a while before booking anything and see how things play out over the next while

What, what have the prices rise by?

Christmas Eve is all about avoiding the rest of your family and going on the INTERNET instead

The UK now have 2 vaccines approved so supply should not be a major issue.

They have 25M vulnerable people who have first priority but in reality they probably need approx 40M people to get the vaccine before they can fully open up.

The current expectation is to have 1M people a week from early Jan to have access to the vaccine but everybody needs 2 vaccines.

So 25M people means 50M vaccines = 50 weeks

Even if they manage to get this up to 2M a week that still means end of June (Q2 for BSM) for all the vulnerable people to get the vaccine.

Another 15M people would be early October.

Since the UK are first movers in approving the vaccines I would assume these timelines would be similar or slightly better than rest of Europe....