According to State Papers released under the 30 years rule, Irish embassy officials provided thousands of euros worth of World Cup tickets to stranded fans in Florida when the Republic of Ireland soccer team competed in USA ’94 against Italy, Mexico and Norway.
State Papers released to the National Archives of Ireland revealed the crisis in detail. English travel firm Sportex collapsed suddenly and left over 300 fans, mainly from Cork, without tickets or hotels. Six Irish travel agents were impacted by the collapse and the first they knew was when their clients contacted them to let them know their tickets had not arrived.
Although this was not disclosed at the time, even to the agents, the archives show embassy staff acted quickly and purchased tickets directly to avert unrest while some officials gave their own personal tickets, safeguarding the admired reputation of Irish supporters and avoiding damage to Ireland’s image.
The failure affected 300 the fans who travelled in large numbers to support Jack Charlton’s side. One of the travel agents recalled yesterday that they spent ten years repaying the fans affected by the collapse, despite the fact that they had not been responsible for the collapse and done their best to sort them out including chartering an aircraft to bring them from New York to Orlando.
A letter from the Irish embassy in Washington DC shared “They [embassy officials]saved a potentially damaging and even riotous situation when the British travel firm, Sportex, collapsed and left many Irish soccer fans stranded and without tickets in Florida.”
When reports were placed in some English-based media of violence among Irish fans, Noel Kilkenny of the Irish embassy shared “These comments are, at best, inaccurate or, at worst, a total fabrication.”
One travel agent recalls: “With fees and everything else it cost us £50,000 back then, and we had to get a mortgage out in order to stay in business, which we did. I had just spoken to the Sportex people, and gone over to a big European match to see them in operation. All seemed okay.
They never showed up with the tickets. I was in Ireland. I hadn’t planned to go at all, because they were looking after other customers. They were the tour operator of the trip and supposed to look after everything. So I had to fly over. I was semi-assaulted by one of the clients.
In one of the hotels, they panicked and the receptionist found a bag of World Cup tickets, that the reps just threw over the counter and ran.
The judge in Cork said: you did everything you could to save the situation, but, unfortunately, that doesn’t alleviate you of any of the responsibility, because people paid the money to you.”
