Man U kicks off new links with Irish travel firms

FOOTBALL TOURISM:MANCHESTER UNITED has unveiled plans to increase its presence in the Irish market by concentrating its business with a handful of travel companies.

The club is also trying to stimulate the moribund corporate hospitality market following a recent €3.5 million overhaul of facilities for what Roy Keane once dubbed the “prawn sandwich brigade”.

Thousands of Irish fans travel regularly to United matches at Old Trafford and other English Premiership venues, and tickets for big games can often be hard to get.

The club says its new partnership with seven established travel companies will increase opportunities for Irish supporters to obtain official tickets for Old Trafford. Further details will be released next Wednesday, when the club rolls into Dublin to play a pre-season game, the first to be staged in the new Aviva stadium, against an Airtricity Irish League XI.

Five of the companies – Dawson Travel, Sports Tours, Club Travel, Wallace Travel and Ulster Bus – will serve the weekend-break market. CSL Hospitality and The Hospitality Partnership have been engaged to service the needs of corporate clients.

The club says packages will be attractively priced, but hasn’t yet released details. Currently, a weekend package to Manchester for big home games against Liverpool or Arsenal costs about €300 per person sharing.

Head of hospitality sales with the club, Caroline McEleney, acknowledged the strength of Man U’s Irish fan base and promised supporters would have unprecedented access to official match day tickets.

Season tickets for Old Trafford cost between €612 and €1,111 next season while match tickets vary in price from €32 to €58, according to the club’s website. Ireland accounts for the biggest number of season ticket holders outside the UK.

Manchester United made profits of over €50 million last year but has debts of more than €700 million. The club claims to have over 500,000 core fans in Ireland and says one in four Irish football fans support the Red Devils. This week’s visit is the first by the team to Ireland since 2002. The Aviva stadium is being used for corporate occasions as well as sporting events and is expected to boost visitor numbers in Dublin at a difficult time for the industry.