Offaly GAA ticket crisis eases as clubs get late allocation

THE ticket crisis for Saturday’s All-Ireland U-20 Hurling Championship final between Offaly and Tipperary in Kilkenny is set to ease considerably with clubs getting an allocation on Wednesday afternoon.

Each club will get in the region of 30 tickets as Tipperary have not taken up their full allocation and some of these have been made available to Offaly. Other tickets may go on sale on Ticketmaster later.

Clubs were notified on Wednesday morning that an allocation would be made available if they wished to avail of it.

Even before that, the sense of panic had begun to abate as some tickets had begun to circulate throughout the county. There had been widespread panic when tickets went on sale on Monday afternoon. It was announced later that evening that all 26,000 tickets were sold.

There was annoyance among some supporters that Offaly GAA clubs hadn’t got an allocation while Tipperary ones did.

Offaly GAA chairman Michael Duignan said on Tuesday morning that they had been advised by Ticketmaster and Croke Park to leave it to people to source tickets themselves in the online sale and had decided against “shifting the problem onto clubs” – as tickets would be all over the venue if distributed to clubs and it would be very hard to accommodate families together.

There was also an element of over buying when tickets initially went on sale with many people buying more than they needed. Some of these have now begun to go into circulation and while there are plenty of people without tickets at the moment, these numbers are dwindling as match day approaches.

The availability of the Tipperary tickets resulted in Offaly GAA deciding to give clubs the option of purchasing a quota of tickets – and if these aren’t all taken, they will go up on Ticketmaster.

Some Offaly GAA officers have come in for unwarranted stick and abuse but have endeavoured every step of the way to ensure that supporters are facilitated, especially the regular match-goers and this new allocation will further ease the pressure.