Munster Fans Snap Up Half Of Northampton Ticket Allocation

Wednesday, 07 April 2010 22:39

Written by Pat Flynn

As many as half the 6,500 tickets allocated to Heineken Cup quarter finalists Northampton Saints have been purchased by Munster supporters ahead of Saturday's crucial clash in Limerick.

The English club, which has struggled to sell is allocation, has confirmed that the “deluge of calls” they received from Munster supporters looking for tickets resulted in their phone lines becoming blocked which in turn prevented Saints fans from buying tickets for their own home games.

Northampton, who are are entitled to a quarter of the capacity of the 26,000-seater Thomond Park Stadium, originally held a lottery among their supporter’s club members believing that there would be a larger demand for tickets. However, the club then held two on-line general sales where Munster fans were quick to secure over 3,000 tickets, almost 50% of Northampton’s official allocation. Meanwhile, it has emerged that Northampton also returned a small number of tickets to Munster.

The English club has also defended a decision to charge a £3(Stg) administration fee as well as £10(Stg) for posting tickets to Ireland. However, it only cost the club 55p (55 pence) to send tickets across the Irish Sea while UK based fans have been charged just £1.50 for postage. No such fee was imposed when Munster fans purchased tickets from Northampton for their two pool encounters in November and January.

A Northampton Saints spokesperson said: “We have certainly not broken any competition rules. We have been above board and warned people in advance of the administration charges. The fee has been imposed for all overseas ticket orders. It covers the cost of administration, including staffing costs, the transaction fee charged by our ticketing system contractors, materials as well as postage.”

“The allocation we have received is for Saints fans. It is not in our interest to be selling tickets from our allocation to Munster fans so we’re being very generous in allowing people from Ireland to buy from us in the first place, especially when the deluge of calls we have received from Ireland has blocked our phone lines and stopped Saints fans buying tickets for games here at Franklin’s Gardens,” the spokesperson added.

Prior to sides first clash last November, a large number of Munster supporters paid a £5 fee to become members of the Northampton Saints supporters club thus entitling them to purchase tickets for Saints games. Fans were able to purchase up to ten tickets each for this weekends clash however some fans reported securing as many as 40 tickets when they in turn sold on to Munster supporters here.

Munster Rugby Supporter's Club vice-chairman Mr Ian Buckley said: “There is nothing underhanded in what our members and other Munster fans have been doing. The tickets went on general sale on the Saints site and they willingly sold tickets to Munster supporters. When we learned that Northampton were making tickets available through general sale we advised our members of this straight away. Members would of course have preferred not to have to pay so much in transaction fees and postage but it is always good when Munster fans can be so resourceful that they can still secure tickets for an important clash when they are scarce on the ground here,” Mr Buckley added.