June 29 – Tickets for the Euro 2016 quarter finals between Germany vs Italy and France vs Iceland sold out within two hours of being placed on sale yesterday. But UEFA warned fans of buying forged tickets from unknown sources.
The tickets for the Poland vs Portugal and Wales vs Belgium quarter finals had similarly sold out the previous day within hour of going online at UEFA’s official 2016 ticketing site.
For the round of 16 France vs Republic of Ireland match, tournament organisers had come under fire from Irish fans and the team for allocating less than 4,500 tickets in the 59,000 capacity Stade de Lyon to Republic of Ireland supporters. Ticket touts were demanding up to €1,000 for tickets in the city in the hours before the game
In their previous match against Italy in Lille the Irish had 25,000 fans in the stadium and many more unable to get tickets.
France’s next opponents Iceland only have a total population of 330,000 – 27,000 have so far bought a ticket for the Euros. The country was allocated 34,000 tickets initially by UEFA for their group matches. At their last 16 match against England, Iceland had about 3,500 fans in the 34,500 capacity Nice stadium.
UEFA responded to criticism of tickets sales policy for the knockout rounds saying: “During the ticket sales period before the tournament started, a fixed allocation of 4,000 tickets was made available to each association for every potential knockout round match.
“These tickets have been taken by supporters of the national associations through so-called conditional tickets, i.e. follow-my-team or specific knockout round match tickets (e.g. if this team qualifies for the round of 16, or quarter-final, etc).
“Tickets which have not been used by an association for one of their knockout round matches will be made available to general public via EURO2016.com on a first-come first-served basis once the fixtures are confirmed.”
UEFA has said it has been made aware of “numerous instances of fans purchasing invalid tickets on the black market and being denied entry to stadiums in France.” They reminded fans that “touted tickets are often forgeries and are no guarantee of admission.”
Quarter finals will be played Thursday though to Sunday:
Portugal vs Poland – Thursday 30 June, 21:00 (Marseille)
Wales vs Belgium – Friday 1 July, 21:00 (Lille)
Germany vs Italy – Saturday 2 July, 21:00 (Bordeaux)
France vs Iceland – Sunday 3 July, 21:00 (Saint-Denis)
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