"We went to support the players"

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What was the atmosphere like at Ireland’s match in Hungary?

Claire 0:00

Get in touch on WhatsApp 087-484-88888.

Ciarán McCarthy 0:07

Uh Frank joins us on the line. Frank, what was the um atmosphere like in the uh stadium in Du Brecken in Hungary?

Frank 0:13

Yeah, it was very good, Karen. I mean obviously there was a a handful of us there. Um luckily we um m a a good few of us managed to get in with cancel tickets, but um It was uh it was a it was a great time, um very strange, but as I said, um it was like being at my twelve year old son's uh soccer match, except that it's the Irish Irish team playing in front of me, so it was special from that perspective.

Ciarán McCarthy 0:36

And w was there uh like uh a a dedicated s I there were there were were not meant to be Irish fans out of it, was there still a dedicated section for you as distinct from where the Israeli fans were?

Frank 0:48

Um yeah, so we were away from the Israeli fans. I mean honestly we bought tickets a number of us bought tickets on Friday um on the Hungarian side. section size. And so we those tickets got processed on Friday, but um they were cancelled Friday night. Um so basically um we had cancel tickets going in. Now I did manage to actually get mine reissued. Um I live in California. I've I've a US and an Irish passport. So I applied with my US passport, my US telephone number, my US address. So I pushed back on the Israeli FA and said, Look, I'm over from California, I just wanna see the game. Uh, can I please get can I please get my ticket back? And after I read ten emails I actually said, Okay, our security team is re reviewed and w they reissued me a ticket, but everyone else in the application with me

Frank 1:34

had applied an Irish passport so they said they cannot get tickets back. So what we said was we would I'd go in and they'd follow me in and you go in with our cancel tickets and play stupid. And uh the lads got in, they got to the gates, obviously the tickets didn't work. And they were like, Well, we're just here for the game. We don't know why our tickets don't work. And um they said, Okay, go ahead in and my understanding is that the Israeli security team said, Yeah, let them in, they're fine.

Ciarán McCarthy 1:59

Oh wow. Okay. So let me talk through that in more detail. I it was through the Israeli FA then you were you were you bought your tickets?

Frank 2:06

Yeah, we could obviously we couldn't get anything from the FAI. They would not they they wouldn't be able to do that. So so so so you you you

Ciarán McCarthy 2:12

approached them on behalf of the group because you've got a a US passport.

How did Irish fans get into the stadium after their tickets were cancelled?

Ciarán McCarthy 2:16

So d did you present yourself as American? Did you acknowledge this and I'm an Irish fan, I'm from Ireland originally, or did you say any of that?

Frank 2:24

Well, my applic I mean, obviously my y my US passport says I was born in Ireland, so there was the so there was a Yeah, that gave the game away in this Yeah. I mean I wasn't I wasn't pretending to be what I'm not, but I didn't overshare anything and obviously I took advantage of having a US passport and a US address. Um but obviously my application and applic was included um t applicants for three Irish passport holders 'cause they didn't have foreign passports. So I mean it was very clear from the beginning what I was, yeah.

Ciarán McCarthy 2:51

So uh how though did they come to issue tickets and then cancel them? I don't understand if they saw the application, saw the other three lads and said, All right, don't give them tickets, but how how did they issue them and then cancel them? What happened?

Frank 3:05

So basically we figured out during the week and obviously was a few of us trying to figure out how to get tickets for this game and and originally there was just tickets on sale. to the Israeli fans. Uh and that site was only in Hebrew and basically we could not figure out how to use it. We were using Chat GPT and everything but couldn't figure out how to use it. Then a late uh middle of last week they put a general sale on to Hungarian only fans. And that site was in English and but it kept asking for an ID so we couldn't figure out what that was. And we think it was a it was still asking for an Israeli ID. So we could get we got to the v checkout page but we couldn't get through.