Republic of Ireland manager Vera Pauw does not mince words. Sometimes she puts it down to English being her second language but one suspects that her ire punctuates just as effectively in Dutch.
Such was the atmosphere in Tallaght stadium last Thursday for the 1-0 defeat of Finland that Louise Quinn and other Irish players barely noticed the rows of unfilled seats. But Pauw saw them.
“I think it was [clubs] as there were a series of seats open. They had bought the tickets but they didn’t show up, and that is a real shame because there were thousands of girls who wanted to come.”
To these young girls, a ticket to see Katie McCabe and Denise O’Sullivan play a World Cup qualifier is priceless. To around 848 people it was only worth €10. The “record attendance” of 6,952 fell glaringly short of the 7,800 tickets sold in quick time.
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[ Ireland braced for difficult assignment in SlovakiaOpens in new window ]
The FAI stated that no free tickets were handed out and that it was down to groups not turning up for whatever reason. Gaps in the main stand were a bad look but apparently clubs who bought in bulk were unable to attend.
No freebies (like bygone times)?
“No, no every ticket had been sold,” said Pauw.
This is not the Ireland manager’s department but the question needed to be put on the record.
“What do you do, eh? It’s our marketing department that are dealing with it. We want it to be accessible to everybody. We can make the tickets more expensive but then you put pressure on people who maybe do not have that much [money] available. You want everybody to be able to attend.
[ Helsinki, Gothenburg & Tallaght nights – Ireland’s World Cup campaign in reviewOpens in new window ]
“My honest feeling is it comes back to the decency of the people who buy the tickets, and that they know there are thousands of girls crying at home. Literally crying at home because they couldn’t go to the stadium. You need to take responsibility when you buy a ticket.”
The final match of Group A takes place in Senec, a lakeside town outside Bratislava, with at best 1,000 spectators expected to attend the Slovakia FA’s impressive training facility, as this pitstop on the road to October play-offs demands another efficient display from Ireland.
“For us there’s plenty to play for,” said Quinn, who is closing in on 100 caps. “Also in the team, there’s plenty to play for in terms of making sure you’re in the next starting XI for a potential play-off, wherever that may be, for Vera to see us and the coaches to see us in the best of our light.
“We’re constantly competing, we constantly want to send messages to other teams about the strength and depth of our team. For us, we’re thrilled to get a play-off, but now we have another chance to make it even better, make it even a better play-off spot, get that extra bonus for the hard work that we’ve done and to keep pushing through in this group like we always have. For us, there’s never complacency in the games, there’s always so much to play for as a team and personally.”
The World Cup play-off draw takes place live on Uefa’s Youtube channel this Friday at 12.30pm.
