Wales-Bosnia: fans “no closer” to knowing if they’ll have a ticket

Wales are due to play Bosnia-Herzegovnia next month, with tickets expected to be in high demand as they near qualification for Euro 2016. However, they have yet to receive their away allocation for the fixture. FSF Cymru’s Paul Corkrey tells us more…

FSF Cymru has been trying to get accurate information about this game for months now, knowing that tickets were going to be limited and there were possible security issues with the game being played in Zenica. We tried again for a meeting this week but may have to wait until next week for accurate information.

Anything you hear about allocation numbers or the criteria being used to sort out who is going to get the tickets is pure guesswork, the information is not known yet.

There needs to be a final decision from the Bosnian FA about the exact number of tickets they will sell to us, it is possible we could get more than the guaranteed five per cent but they wanted to wait until after this weekend’s matches to decide.

My personal view is that an increase is doubtful but I pray I am wrong because as it stands now we could well have more travelling without tickets than actually travel with tickets, regardless of what criteria is used. We also know that Bosnia have not sold out one match yet, nowhere near it so it could be possible we get more tickets and the wait would have been worthwhile.

It is very late in the day as far as we are concerned and we have made that clear to the FAW. But again they need to know the correct allocation before they can start selling these tickets. We have to have accurate information to produce our FSF booklet and time to get it translated to Welsh. Leigh James needs to know who is going to need coaches but most importantly to us is the fact that many fans have booked in advance and spent a lot of money and are still no closer to knowing if they will have a ticket or be watching the game in some bar in Bosnia.

We are also getting the feeling that the Bosnian police do not want Welsh fans in Zenica pre match but again we need the absolute accurate information before we can pass on anything.

Although a meeting is planned for early next week, if we hear anything sooner or anything is decided in the meanwhile we will pass it straight on. We can say that the delay is because the FAW want as many tickets as possible to satisfy the demand of their members and the Bosnians are not very quick responding to repeated requests, although it is frustrating waiting for news, we believe that it is worthwhile trying to get the extra tickets.

Hopefully the Bosnian police and FA will see the sense of having all the visiting Welsh fans inside the stadium rather than in the bars of city centres.