YBIG STATEMENT R/E MEETING YESTERDAY

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 Hoosay wrote:

 Colbert Report2 wrote:

I'm going to take a very unpopular opinion here, and before anyone accuses me of being a wind-up merchant, please hear me out.  I have been big into football every since I grew up in Ireland throughout the late 80s to the late 90s.  I am almost 31 years old now, and have been watching the national team for as long as I can remember.  Many of you will know me from foot.ie as I have been posting there for years.

Who do you people think you are to expect greater access to tickets than anyone else?  What does it matter if you go to all the away matches?  That is your choice and nobody else should be penalized by lack of ticket access just because you think you are better because you go to Eastern Europe the odd time to watch them play.  Grow up.

I live in North America and the whole concept of "home" and "away" ticket allocations is totally foreign to me.  Here, the home team sells 100% of their own tickets to whomever wants them, as there is seldom any "away" support given the distances between cities.

When I came home to Ireland in 2009 I saw the 1-1 draw with Bulgaria at Croke Park and it was only through the kindness of a fellow supporter on foot.ie that I was able to even go.  He sold me one of his spare tickets for face value and was very nice all around.

If I wanted to go to see Ireland play Scotland in Glasgow next month, why should I be penalized or looked down upon because I live in Canada and it is impractical for me to come over to see all the matches?  Just quit your whinging.  If you don't like the way they give out tickets, stop going to matches, stay at home and watch in on television.

Not sure why I'm bothering, but here goes...

You have been "big into" football since the 1980s, and are a regular on foot.ie but the concept of home and away allocations, a concept that has been part of the sport that you are "big into" for 40-50 years prior to you becoming big into it? <span style="line-height: 16.7999992370605px;">Whether the concept of home and away allocations is foreign to you or not, it is a fact of life in football. It is against the terms and conditions of the ticket to buy a ticket for the home end if you are supporting the away team. Anyone who does it is running the risk of being ejected from the stadium. That might not be the case in North American sports, it is the case in Europe and in South America. Away allocations are a fact in all international and the vast majority of other professional football matches. Buying tickets in the home end for Scotland is not likely to be a problem, both sets of fans are known for being friendly the Scots know the score they do it all the time in other cities and will do it in Dublin. Most people will get into the ground they just won't be with their mates who they travel all over the world with. Doing the same thing in somewhere like Poland is a lot riskier. What people want is a transparent system that lets them know if they will have a ticket or if  they have to take that risk and get tickets elsewhere. Not sure why that is a hard concept to grasp.</span>

America, as you point out has a completely different sporting culture. Professional sports in America do not generally have the fan culture that football in the rest of the world has. Your comparison makes no sense. Its also untrue. American sports teams sell season tickets, those season tickets guarantee you a seat at every regular season match. They also give you priority over non season ticket holders for play-off games. Are you honestly suggesting that the New York Yankees, Dallas Cowboys, Chicago Bulls or anyone else sells tickets on a first come first served basis without sorting out their regular fans first?

As has been pointed out, there was no shortage of tickets for the Bulgaria match in Croke Park, they were on public sale and did not sell out. Fair play to your foot.ie buddy and all that, but you could have just bought one in a shop.

Why should you be penalised for living in Canada? You shouldn't, nobody said you should. But why should you have the same right to a scarce ticket as someone who has been a regular purchaser of tickets for several years who goes out of their way to buy tickets when they are less scarce because it involves a difficult journey or less interesting opposition, who has paid Thousands of Euros to the organisation that sells the tickets and who was promised by representatives of that organisation that they would be "sorted"? There's a former regular poster on this board who used to travel from LA regularly to attend matches. There are people who travel from Dubai and Australia. People who travel from all over Europe to home and away matches. You should have the same right to a ticket as them when you couldn't even bother your arse buying a ticket from an official source for a match that wasn't sold out?

I don't post on or read foot.ie, but I can't imagine regular travellers and season ticket holders there are any happier about what has happened than people here. Why not go and test the waters over there, see if telling them to grow up and quit their whingeing goes down well? See if your regular poster status gives you any more credibility than you have here.

***YBIG STATEMENT R/E MEETING YESTERDAY***

YBIG STATEMENT R/E MEETING YESTERDAY