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Opinion: Unfair FAI ticket policy is anti-culchie discrimination

Published

2 years ago

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Ireland supporters during the friendly against Belgium at the Aviva Stadium. Photo: Seb Daly/Sportsfile.

by Adam Moynihan

As a conscientious father, I feel it is my duty to teach my son how to be humble. With that in mind, I decided to take him to his first Ireland football match.

The friendly international against Belgium last Saturday evening seemed like a good option. So, I went about booking the trip from Killarney to Dublin.

Match tickets wouldn’t be a problem, I thought, so I checked out the train and accommodation first. Irish Rail wanted €83 for the two of us. Bit steep, maybe, but nothing new there. The hotel would set us back €150 a night. I had to go with two nights in the end because the early trains were booked out on the Saturday. That’s €383.

Add in food and a mandatory trip to the Disney Store on Grafton Street and it would be an expensive weekend. But the life lesson would be worth it.

As it turned out, the match tickets would be a problem. Not because they were sold out, but because the FAI released tickets for Saturday's Belgium match as part of a ‘duo’ package with the Switzerland match the following Tuesday. If you wanted to purchase a ticket for the first, you had to purchase a ticket for the second. No exceptions.

The duo ticket was advertised as €70 for adults and €50 for under 16s. That’s €120 for an adult plus a child for the two games. But their advertising was misleading; adult tickets were, indeed, €70, but when you went to Ticketmaster and tried to buy a child ticket and an adult ticket together, all the adult options were €100. So it was actually €150 for an adult and a child for two games.

And it was effectively €150 for one game in my case as I only wanted to take him to the Belgium fixture.

Do they really expect anyone from the western half of the country to travel to the capital twice in four days, or to stay up and take a five-day holiday, just to see two 90-minute football matches? Two meaningless friendlies, by the way. Under an interim manager. With no tournament on the horizon, and no fixtures of any significance for another four months.

Clearly the duo package was made with Dubliners in mind. It is completely useless to the rest of us so making it mandatory is really nothing short of anti-culchie discrimination.

It’s easy to imagine FAI CEO Jonathan Hill paraphrasing that cracker factory boss in The Simpsons. “Maybe people outside of Dublin like football. We don’t know. Frankly, we don’t want to know. It’s a market we can do without.”

The bizarre policy isn’t even fair to Dubliners, really. Why should they have to pay for both games when they might only want to go to one? Who knows, maybe they can only afford to go to one. Being alive is expensive business these days.

I've seen one or two people suggest that you could always buy the duo ticket and sell the one you don't want. Why should fans be selling tickets on the FAI's behalf? Surely that's their job?

Single tickets for the Switzerland game did come out after the Belgium game. But what good is that to people who felt pressured into getting the duo ticket?

To me it looks like a cash-grab by the FAI, who will probably say that their goal is to boost attendances rather than to grab cash. Well, there were 13,000 empty seats on Saturday and 18,000 on Tuesday. (Those are the official numbers, anyway.)

If that's what attendances look like after a boost then I'd hate to see them without one.

In the end, my son and I did manage to make it to Ireland v Belgium. I had no intention of paying for the duo ticket but fortunately, after I complained about the policy on Twitter, a friendly stranger offered me the use of his family season pass as he couldn’t go. I got very lucky. I’m sure many others who wanted to attend simply couldn’t.

As for the game itself, Ireland missed a penalty, it finished 0-0 and, yes, I do believe my son came home a slightly humbler young man.

I didn’t bother explaining the whole duo ticket fiasco to him, or that the FAI don't seem to care about simple country folk like us. That's another lesson for another day.

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Home cup tie for St Paul’s could be epic

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4 weeks ago

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7 November 2025

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Paudie O’Connor National Cup (Round 1)

Utility Trust St Paul’s v GCU Brunell

Saturday 7.30pm

Killarney Sports and Leisure Centre

The St Paul’s women’s team will be hoping to get their National Cup adventure off the ground on Saturday when they welcome 2024 champions Brunell to Killarney. Tip-off in the Killarney Sports and Leisure Centre is at 7.30pm.

Paul’s have displayed some fine early season form, although their unbeaten start in the Super League came to an abrupt end last weekend when they lost to the Trinity Meteors in Dublin. James Fleming’s side weren’t at their best on the day but they were well in contention heading into the final quarter with the scores at 47-45 in favour of the hosts. The Meteors pushed on in the fourth, however, eventually running out 63-53 winners.

St Paul’s scorers on the night were Maisie Burnham (13), Tara Cousins (12), Lorraine Scanlon (12), Lovisa Hevinder (9), Denise Dunlea (5) and Leah McMahon (2).

The Killarney club are now joint second in the table alongside the Meteors with both teams holding a 4-1 record. Killester are top having won each of their first five games.

Paul’s opponents on Saturday, Brunell, have won three out of five league matches so far.

LAKERS

The Utility Trust St Paul’s Lakers have now won three of their last four games in Division 1 of the Men’s National League following an impressive home victory over Moycullen in Killarney.

Eoin Carroll and Jack O’Sullivan made significant contributions of the Boys in Black; Carroll hit 17 points and collected 13 rebounds while O’Sullivan had 14 points, 12 rebounds and some spectacular blocks.

Steve Kelly posted 30 points and the durable Sam Grant played every second, adding 21 points along the way.

The Lakers started well before the visitors found their footing and the sides went in level at the half-time break after scores by home captain Carroll. There was still nothing to separate the teams entering the fourth quarter (68-65) but buckets by Carroll, Pablo Murcia and Grant opened up a nine-point lead. Moycullen fought back admirably, however, cutting the deficit to just four, but Luke O’Hea’s charges held firm to prevail by eight (88-80).

Next up is a cup tie against the Tipperary Talons, a side they defeated by 30 points just a couple of weeks ago. The cup can be very different to the league, though, and they will need another solid performance to advance to the next round. Tip-off in in Killenaule is at 6.30pm on Saturday.

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Chances of Kerry v Cork Munster final in 2026 decrease as Munster GAA delay seeding plan

Published

4 weeks ago

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7 November 2025

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After facing a backlash from Limerick, Clare, Waterford and Tipperary players, Munster GAA have postponed their plan to keep Cork and Kerry separate in the 2026 Munster Football Championship.

The new seeding system – which gives the two highest ranked Munster teams in the National League byes to separate semi-finals – will now come into play in 2027, twelve months later than initially planned.

This will give Clare and Limerick a chance to earn promotion to Division 2 of the league, potentially overtaking Cork if the Rebels were to get relegated to Division 3.

Despite traditionally being the two main contenders for Munster football honours, Kerry and Cork haven’t met in a provincial decider since 2021. The Kingdom have won each of the finals since then (one versus Limerick and three versus Clare) by an average margin of 15.75 points.

More high-profile Kerry v Cork finals might be desirable for fans of those teams, businesses in Killarney and Cork, and neutrals alike but Munster GAA’s plans to effectively keep the great rivals on opposite sides of the draw understandably drew criticism from the other participating counties. A statement by the GPA confirmed that players from Limerick, Clare, Waterford and Tipp had met via Zoom to discuss the matter. They were said to be “deeply disappointed and concerned” by the decision.

The 12-month delay will at least give two of those disaffected teams an opportunity to benefit from the new seeding process.

The draw for the 2026 Munster Football Championship will take place on November 27 under the old rules. As 2025 finalists, Kerry and Clare will get byes to the last four (but they will not necessarily be kept apart).

Nine members of Kerry’s squad are up for All-Stars at tonight’s awards ceremony in Dublin with Joe O’Connor and David Clifford also in contention for the prestigious Footballer of the Year award.

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