Irish Embassy officials spent thousands of pounds buying tickets for Republic of Ireland matches at the 1994 USA World Cup in an effort to prevent a “riotous situation” after hundreds of Irish fans were left stranded in Florida when a British travel agent went out of business.
The rationale for the decision is outlined in documents released to the National Archives, as is a pre-tournament letter from then-tánaiste Dick Spring to Fifa chief Sepp Blatter seeking “an adequate supply of tickets for Irish supporters”.
British travel firm Sportex was wound up while fans were in the US in June 1994, meaning planned hotels and tickets for Ireland’s three group games against Italy, Mexico and Norway did not materialise.
A letter dated December 13th, 1994, from the Irish Embassy in Washington, DC, to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) explained how embassy officials took matters into their own hands to protect Ireland’s “image” in the US.
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“[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,” the file noted.
It said that the purchase of the tickets provided “a vital safety net for Ireland and our image here, especially given the intense and daily media interest in the Sportex case”.
The official continued: “Though it was a purely defensive and damage-limitation effort on our part, the defusion of the potentially riotous situation involving Sportex fans in Florida prevented the important enhancement of the image of Ireland, which was developed during the World Cup, being seriously undermined overnight.”
A DFA briefing note from June 1994 outlined that officials were “trying to alleviate the consequences of the failure of this London company [Sportex] to pay for hotel accommodation and transport in the US, and to provide match tickets for 300 to 370 Cork people who had booked three-match packages with them either direct or through Cork travel agents”.
The memo noted that, by June 21st, “it was clear that no funds would be forthcoming from the company in time to be of practical relevance to the Irish clients affected”.
The document noted that, as of June 22nd, the Irish consulate in Orlando, Florida had “obtained tickets for most if not all the Sportex customers going to the Ireland-Mexico match”. The Cork-based travel agents “paid for hotel accommodation to the end of this week for people who have booked through them”.
The actions of the embassy staff were praised in post-tournament correspondence, including a letter from Ireland’s ambassador to the US Dermot Gallagher to DFA senior official Anne Anderson on July 15th, 1994.
In a letter sent on January 25th, 1994 – months before the tournament took place – Spring wrote to the now-disgraced former Fifa official Sepp Blatter, who at the time was the organisation’s general secretary.
Highlighting the “groundswell of support for our team”, he said Irish fans traditionally travel in great numbers.
“Against this background, we are very concerned that there should be an adequate supply of tickets for Irish supporters planning to travel to World Cup ’94. The indications so far have not been reassuring,” he said.
Separate files outline the amount of public money spent for government ministers and other officials to go to World Cup games.
A December 1995 briefing note from the Department of Finance said that not properly registering costs and their exact reasons “is a very serious matter”. The file noted that, given the “one-off nature” of World Cup trips, the comptroller and auditor general spending watchdog was likely to closely examine records.
Some £150,000 in public money was spent on the event, including £88,500 on grants to support companies promoting Irish products, £28,615.79 on travel and £2,354.17 for a helicopter for then-taoiseach Albert Reynolds.
Several ministers went to various Ireland games, including Reynolds, Spring, then-minister for tourism Charlie McCreevy and then-minister for finance Bertie Ahern.
