Ireland V Argentina

ah the Aviva

Great sruff by Brady on the panel, atmosphere will be much better than Croker :). tell us something we don't know chippy. Shame with the lucky offside goal.

A measly 45,000 wouldn't create much of an athmosphere in Croke Pk alright.

No daradasi he means when both stadiums are full much better atmosphere at 50,000 Aviva than 72k that would have packed into Croker for say Ireland v Italy or France etc etc. Hope that clears it up

Looks like its going to be hard to even fill the ridiculously low 50,000 capacity against the likes of Armenia, Andorra, Macedonia, Slovakia and Russia when they can't even draw 50,000 to the first international soccer match there against one of the most attractive sides in the world at near full strength containing the best player in the world on a nice summer's evening.

Hundreds of seats with a blocked view, questionable angles in the stands people
can't see over other peoples heads, leaking roof, poor attendance, poor access,
dangerous bottlenecks inside and outside the ground. Amateur stuff. Joke of
a stadium with a pathetic capacity, which they can't even fill on the first day
ever in the stadium! They got a full house for a league match between Tyrone
and Dublin in Croker ffs. How hard could it have been. The corporate and premium
seat sales are a major blow too. Bankruptcy can't be far behind.

As I've said before it's the rugby crowd I feel sorry for, they've been dragged
down to this level. They deserve better.

Both the IRFU and the FAI are on the record as saying that if they had known Croker would have been available indefinitely the would have looked differently on the development of the Aviva. Afraid they're stuck with it now.

Def. a step backwards for the IRFU, the Aviva is more in line with the Stadio Flaminio than Twickenham.

Whats with the comical stand behind the goal. Like some shed in a school yard.

45,200 add in the segregation bit as you have a lot of seats lost with that. Now can you tell me of any nation bar England who had 45,200 at a non competitive match tonight in the world? I did not think so, thats how impressive the crowd was. Ricky and Daza i love you little guys

Well Joseff, segregation. What with the millions of potentially violent
Argentinian fans who attended. Sure put a big dent in the capacity alright.
Back in the real world, I find it hard to believe they didn't manage to sell
out the game, maybe if the FAI hadn't tried to burn their premium seat customers
it might have brought things closer to capacity. They look quite foolish now.
It was a pointless moneygrabbing exercise at the expense of their most loyal
fans. Disgrace.

Almost 100,000 were at the Mexico Spain game. So do a bit of research before
spouting rubbish.

There was also another ticketing fiasco, despite having 2 years to organise it
fans were left having to attend a hotel in the city to collect their tickets.
The FAI couldn't even organise a mail-shot of tickets. Ridiculous but not
surprising. God knows what became of fans travelling from the country or from
abroad to attend the game.

So, tell me Joseff, did you really attend tonight or was it another lie of yours?
Are you sure you attended this time?

Croker > Aviva

How much did Aviva pay for sponsership of the ground as I must have heard the name mentioned six million times.

The positives even after buying a forty quid ticket I can't argue with the view the design of the stadium does allow a wonderful view no matter where you sit they got it quite right so fair do's.

Though

Atmosphere was awful never seen it worse. Though this is down to the kind of person attending to be honest anyone who dare raised a song was stared into a sudden silence.

Why speak up about machines that can serve pints in 0.000001 seconds when your not going to serve alcohol. I politely asked for a pint of Carlsberg pre kick off Calsberg signs which were up around the area and was told no alcohol was being served at this event tonight, a friendly match. Will alcohol ever be served at all for Football or is it purely for the Rugby crowd only its ridiculous.


A overpriced white elephant we have next to no funding for football at junior levels in Ireland, clubs that went insolvent the second they turned professional. This is a ground that was built for 410 million euro where in comparison the much better milennium stadium cost 170 million euro.

30000 went to see Bahrain in a minor Chinese city
too. Hardly an impressive crowd seeing as we had
the world's best footballer coming to town.

Best you could do Ricky, look and look again. Fuming 45k turn up to watch the natioanl team in a kick around

Squigs i pretty much agree with everything, not a bad seat in the house lads hear that

\it was a pretty damning assessment alright.I'm glad ur coming round to my
way of thinking. As soon as soccer fans stop accepting 3rd world  standards
in every aspect of life the better.

They stopped mate even UEFA and FIFA just allow all seater stadiums, it makes me laugh to see part of stadiums with no seats for people to sit on that's very 3rd world.

Ricky and Daza are seething

Its the camraderie that prevails at these soccer matches that is so admirable,now they say there was only a paltry 45,000 at this game but i reckon that with the seat sharing system in operation at that game,it could be nearly double that.I happened to see three people sharing the same seat in the stadium last night,Joseff from Louth was kind enough to let Rocketfingers and Workrider sit with him on his one.

No it's called a terrace Joseff, rugby supporters loved it and the NFL think it's such
idea they've decided to follow the GAA's lead in this regard. Cutting edge as
always.

So were you at the game or not?

such a great idea

A serious anti soccer contingent on here, I'm not too pushed about the capacity, We've gone through a high water mark for Rugby achievement in the last few years, who is to say it will always be this way, look at the age profile of our rugby team. I wouldn't want to see 20,000 empty seats at Six Nations matches because lets face it, people want to follow winners. I think 50,000 was about right for a stadium in the middle of a city like Dublin, there were probably other considerations anyway. On the issue of the FAI and IRFU not building had they known Croker would be available indefinitely, I'm sure the GAA announced this to create maximum damage when there was no going back, Either way the FAI/IRFU were damned if they did or didn't build the Stadium. You can rubbish the FAI for lots of things but this stadium shouldn't be one of them, it comes accross as a bit churlish

They hate soccer because it'snow the most played sport in Ireland

Not sure why they hate hurling and Rugby though !!

Was at the match last night and there is no way on earth that there was 45000 there. 35000 would be about right!The stadium was impressive,its like a scaled down version of Croker!

The place came alive everytime Mascherano touched the ball......biggest cheer was Messi being substituted.

Gant we lost 1-0, The biggest cheer was heard for Robbie Keane when he was announced to the fans before the game, but second was Messi and quite rightly too Gant. It's what football fans do, they have the ultimate respect for one of the world's greatest players, hairs stood up on my neck when i seen the reception messi got, you could see it clearly got to him as he seemed to take a few seconds longer to walk from the hollow turf than it should, what a contrast from the finish of the Louth v Meath match just a few weeks earlier. Respect given respect received between Messi and the Irish football fans, i know now why over 36 billion watched the world cup final our sport is the greatest Gant.

found it hard to take any positives from the game.. mcshane and kilbane should not be anywhere near the international setup, that they are playing is shocking.. lost count of the number of times duff failed to beat the first man with a cross all evening and we still lack creativity to create the numerous chances needed for robbie keane to score one goal..did we even have a shot on target ? only consolation is that it was a friendly and hopefully we will see a much improved performance in sept but I wonder do we have the belief and balls to win a big game at home when we need to..

So your comparing International sport with the GAA.......fair compliment.
As I said before I have no problem with International soccer and regularly go to premiership matches

I never questioned the biggest cheer of the night........but did the Man Utd fans there give Mascherano a hard time.

Get over the Louth/Meath game........Was there not 20000 unsold tickets for a world cup semi final.

GAA people follow the national team(Thousands there last night) and the premiership.....it's where our decent soccer players have to go at an early age.

Nice to see respect for world class players.

the fools booing mascherano made twats of themselves.ireland playing argentina in dublin and their booing someone cos he doesnt wanna play for an english club!Sums up the pathetic mentality of people in this country.
Lots of empty seats tho Messi was class and worth the entrance fee alone.
Was suprised that no drink was onsale at all and think this contributed to the pretty poor athmosphere but was told by a barman this was FIFA rules and out of the hands of the FAI.

Glad you now agree with Con Murphy so gant ;)

I genuinely felt very sad walking up to the stadium from Ringsend, watching the countless kids, families and adults all decked out in the Manchester United colours. If only even a percentage of that number would come out and support their local team we'd all be in a much better place.
I thought it was telling that the Airtricity selection had the word 'Ireland' printed on the back collar of their jerseys and yet we had Irish Manchester United supporters booing them. Not all of them were booing of course, but some of them were.
All in all, I found it a totally dispiriting night. The false atmosphere in the stadium, the 12-inch extended remix of the bloody Mexican wave (always a sign that the match is not holding the crowds interest), the colour red everywhere.


Thats a piece of what Con wrote.......he is on about the loi.
You would get more at a meath senior club hurling championship match than a loi fixture.

So how would I agree with an loi bleeding heart..........it's just not a popular figures say so.
We had a good debate in studio this week about the merits or otherwise of the Airtricity Man United friendly, and as Roddy said, it was more of a money making exercise for the FAI than anything else, and there's no crime in the FAI putting on a match to raise much needed funds

Mascherano got booed because he had a sly dig at McShane than made a gesture towards the singing section behind the goal. Let's get facts right before spouting crap on here. Also the no-alcohol policy is purely rules laid down by UEFA. If you go to any champions league or Europa games you will find the bars closed. FIFA on the otherhand aren't so anti-drink as they receive a sizeable sponsorship from budweiser. You will notice most of the crowd shots during the WC had people happily sipping on Bud.
The general negativity towards the Irish football team on this forum never ceases to amaze me.

Irishro thanks for clearing that up that what i saw as well, Gant you may take your bigoted rubbish and crawl back under what ever rock you camee from. A league of Ireland game was a sell out last week as well as two other clubs had capacity crowds at games last week. You are a serious bigot and us the good Irish sports fan who go to all different sports know your creditability has reached an all time low on here. I've never known hatred like it, 95,000 turn up to watch two games featuring part time players that are not even competitive matches when did GAA matches ever pull that for a non competitive match? Your getting very boring now, keep out of the soccer threads if you are that jealous that you can't hide it

Now now rocketfingers/workrider/joseff if you can't handle the truth stay off the pitch.
You don't like GAA and I have no time for loi.......please explain how I am a bigot and quote me if you like.....I can do apologies.

Irishro, the general negativity is normally just a reaction to the idiot Rocketfingers winding people up due to his insane envy of the success of the GAA. I myself have played Soccer, Rugby and GAA and am at present a full member of clubs of all 3 assocations. I watch and enjoy all 3 but I find any comment I make on soccer on here is just a response to a wind up by the idiot. I know a lot on here have learned to inore him in his previous incarnation as workrider and now rocketfingers but there is obviously still a significant few of us on here that can't resist the urge to correct the fool.
Due to the appearance of this clown on nearly every soccer topic on here, I generally (and I'm sure a lot more too)keep most of my soccer posts to the general football forum.

95,000 turn up to watch two games featuring part time players that are not even competitive matches when did GAA matches ever pull that for a non competitive match? Your getting very boring now, keep out of the soccer threads if you are that jealous that you can't hide it Grin

I think you find there are not many part time players in either the Manchester United or Argentina squads but hey I made be mistaken but we did not sell out against Argentina one of the worlds glamour sides we play Norway in November we might only get 30-35,000 to that.

We have to remember we also got 35,000 for a u20s provincial challange match

Croke Park sells out for the international rules series and thats an exhibition series so your question in answered there RF

When bad mouthing the GAA do not use the LOI as a comparison as from a administration point of view as there is no finer example of mis management and poor financial planning in this country.

Squigs International rules series is competitive and Croker never sold out not even close !!!!
Please Ricky, Daza, Gant and Squigs please lads only deal in facts, Gaelic is an amatuer sport the reason it is not professional is that not enough people would go to watch the games to pay the players on a regular season otherwise it would. More people go to watch Bray than would go to Paranell Park to watch league games thats fact.

Bray's average attendance is roughly 600(six hundred), Dublins average league attendance is around the 6,000 mark.

Daradasi please deal in factual figures only please. Both probably the same !!

Give it up lads i won't be responding to anymore bigotry !!!

Bye

The north stand of this stadium is an utter farce..how this stadium got the europa league final i do not know

FAI will 'make it up to fans' over Aviva chaos

   
By Ciaran Byrne

Friday August 13 2010

UNDER-fire FAI chief executive John Delaney promised yesterday to "make it up" to soccer fans who endured ticket chaos at Ireland's first game in its new home.

Hundreds of fans were told their tickets for the Aviva Stadium had been posted only to be told hours before the game against Argentina that they would have to collect them in person.

Some fans said yesterday they were sent to two different hotels near Lansdowne Road while others gave up queuing and bought more tickets instead from official ticket vans.

The ticket fiasco meant the game was delayed by almost 15 minutes with thousands of empty seats visible by the scheduled 7.45pm kick-off. The game began just before 8pm.

However, more worrying for the FAI is the fact that a large number of the empty seats at the ground were in premium sections, areas which Mr Delaney and his officials have been heavily promoting recently.

Embarrassment

Despite the embarrassment of not filling the ground, Mr Delaney, who earns €430,000 a year, insisted the crowd of less than 46,000 was "a great turnout" and he blamed the empty seats on the recession.

In addition, some fans who visited the stadium expressed anger yesterday over what they said were "rip-off" prices for food and drink inside the new stadium.

Some visitors said the price of burgers in the Aviva Stadium, at between €6.50 and €7.50 each, compared badly to the average €3 cost in a typical McDonald's restaurant.

A small portion of chips cost €4, almost double what a customer would expect to pay in a chipper anywhere in Ireland.

Other prices included €2.50 for soft drinks and €3 for a bag of sweets. Some fans at the game said food and drink cost less at Croke Park.

A pint of lager at the Aviva is priced at €5.40, 40c more than the cost of a pint at Croke Park, which played host of soccer and rugby internationals while the Aviva was being built.

A spokesman for the Aviva Stadium said: "The burgers, which are gourmet burgers, are 100pc made from Irish beef sourced locally as indeed are the other ingredients of cheese, bacon and relish.

Competitive

"The prices in the stadium are benchmarked against all of the other major event venues in Dublin and are in the main competitive."

One parent, who travelled from Sligo for the match, told how he paid more than €160 to bring his children.

"I left work early and rushed to Dublin from Sligo therefore leaving no time to stop for grub," he told the Irish Independent.

"Having already spent €120 to bring myself and the two children to the game I was sickened to have to pay €45 for a burger, chips, sweets and drink for the three of us."

Another supporter who contacted the Irish Independent said he had paid €10 for four soft drinks for his children. "It's too much," he said.

Yesterday, Mr Delaney defended the ticketing procedures. He said last week's Manchester United game against an Airtricity League side and Wednesday's fixture provided a good return.

"It's a difficult time in terms of the economy, it's also August when people are on holidays. I think 95,000 people in seven days is a good achievement."

He was speaking at a press conference to announce details of Carling's sponsorship of the new Four Nations competition, due to kick off next year.

The Republic, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland will compete in round-robin matches at the Aviva Stadium, with the first two games taking place on February 8 and 9, and the remaining games during May.

- Ciaran Byrne

Irish Independent

ah the Aviva

Funny that they were not selling pints hmmmm i think Mr Byrne story does not add up, the GAA are really livid over the Aviva but i am glad to hear that 95k turn up to two non competitive matches one games featuring amatuers would have been 100k if it was not for the mix up with the tickets.

GAA and their monkeys sink to a new low

GANT007 Joined: 19 Sep 08
Replies: 878 12 Aug 10 22:08   
Now now rocketfingers/workrider/joseff if you can't handle the truth stay off the pitch.
You don't like GAA and I have no time for loi.......please explain how I am a bigot and quote me if you like.....I can do apologies

Any chance of a reply.........google the word bigot if you have to.

First of all Gant i'm a member of my local GAA the gaels, second i love sport i am soccer and hurling fan i love the two of them. You have the same attitude of banning all rugby and soccer players that the GAA have had, some my say it's still there. Typical defensive attitude other my say it's lack of confidence in your own sport gaelic football, i ain't sure which. I ain't going to read through your dire wishy washy attempts at having a go at the beautiful game and having endless pops at the most modern stadium not alone in Ireland but Europe and maybe the world out of pure jealousy. No more games and i ain't WR or Joseff either.

I know your only a wind up merchant..........have I ever bad mouthed rugby, the aviva stadium, international soccer and premiership soccer...answer NO.......I have no interest or care about the loi.........is your hatred of gaelic football a local thing.......GAA clubs are mostly hurling(camogie) and football........why do you think people here are gaelic football fans......most probably play both...I do.

Explain the bigot remark to me or sorry a monkey belonging to the GAA.
Liffey Gaels?

Given a sub for City. Unbelievable really when you consider how good he has been for the last 10 years. Bad news for Ireland.

Not really, he'll be off to Arsenal.

Mancini is off his rocker if he rates Hart the better keeper of the two.

If you were Mancini would you sell him to Arsenal? I'd rather leave him in the reserves. It would be a great move if it happened.

hart having a total stormer . galwayman proved clueless A-G-A-I-N

How the Fe*k is Delaney on 430,000 a year??? for opening spars with Trap?

Exactly Diamond Joe 430k......Nepotism is alive and well in the FAI.

Magnificent performance from Hart today. Won't see a better performance this season. Maybe Sideshow Bob knows more than he's been letting on.