Eight percent of Icelanders intends to attend to the 2016 UEFA European Championship in France 3433
13. mar 2023 20:28
According to the UEFA 29,985 Icelanders applied for tickets to watch Iceland play at the UEFA European football championship in France this summer. This means 8.15% of the nation has applied for tickets to the game. The UEFA calls the interest “unparalleled”, describing it as a flood.
Fans could apply for tickets to the games through online through the webpage of the UEFA. The number of tickets each nation is allotted for the opening three games depends on the stadiums that the team plays at. Icelandic fans receive 7,000 tickets to the first game played by the Icelandic national team, in Saint-Etienne, 12,000 to the next game in Marseille and 15,000 tickets to the third game in Paris.
Gylfi Sigurðsson The team's captain and currently Iceland's best player. Gylfi plays for Swansea FC in the English Premier League. Photo/Vilhelm Gunnarsson
The large number of tickets allotted to Iceland by the UEFA had raised some eyebrows in England, where the Mail Online worried that English fans faced heartbreak as more Englishmen were planning to attend the opening games than England was being allotted tickets.
Some 50,000 English fans had been predicted to head across the Channel for the competition, but that figure will be slashed after England was allocated just 23,520 tickets for the opening three games.
That’s nearly 8,000 fewer tickets than Iceland has been allocated, meaning that there will be a maximum of just 10 Icelandic people to every ticket – compared to 2,254 English per ticket.
It should, of course, be pointed out that statistically speaking English football fans are far less dedicated than Icelandic football fans. At first sight it would seem 50,000 English fans planning to go to France is twice the number of Icelandic fans. However, this overlooks the fact that there are more Englismen than Icelanders. By a wide margin. The local newspaper Morgunblaðið puts the interest of the 29,985 Icelandic fans into context, by pointing out it is the same as if 4.4 million people in England had applied for tickets or 6.6 million Germans.
Iceland, with its 330,000 inhabitants, is of course by far the smallest nation to qualify for participation in a major football tournament. The UEFA points engages in some statistical games to illustrate this fact.
In population terms, Iceland's achievement is truly startling; the nation's population is less than a fifth of the size of that of Northern Ireland – the 23rd most populous nation represented in France. The 23-man squad which Iceland will take to UEFA EURO 2016 will represent around 0.007% of the national population; if Russia took an equivalent cohort with them to the finals, they would bring over 10,000 players.
According to the UEFA 29,985 Icelanders applied for tickets to watch Iceland play at the UEFA European football championship in France this summer. This means 8.15% of the nation has applied for tickets to the game. The UEFA calls the interest “unparalleled”, describing it as a flood.
Fans could apply for tickets to the games through online through the webpage of the UEFA. The number of tickets each nation is allotted for the opening three games depends on the stadiums that the team plays at. Icelandic fans receive 7,000 tickets to the first game played by the Icelandic national team, in Saint-Etienne, 12,000 to the next game in Marseille and 15,000 tickets to the third game in Paris.
Gylfi Sigurðsson The team's captain and currently Iceland's best player. Gylfi plays for Swansea FC in the English Premier League. Photo/Vilhelm Gunnarsson
The large number of tickets allotted to Iceland by the UEFA had raised some eyebrows in England, where the Mail Online worried that English fans faced heartbreak as more Englishmen were planning to attend the opening games than England was being allotted tickets.
Some 50,000 English fans had been predicted to head across the Channel for the competition, but that figure will be slashed after England was allocated just 23,520 tickets for the opening three games.
That’s nearly 8,000 fewer tickets than Iceland has been allocated, meaning that there will be a maximum of just 10 Icelandic people to every ticket – compared to 2,254 English per ticket.
It should, of course, be pointed out that statistically speaking English football fans are far less dedicated than Icelandic football fans. At first sight it would seem 50,000 English fans planning to go to France is twice the number of Icelandic fans. However, this overlooks the fact that there are more Englismen than Icelanders. By a wide margin. The local newspaper Morgunblaðið puts the interest of the 29,985 Icelandic fans into context, by pointing out it is the same as if 4.4 million people in England had applied for tickets or 6.6 million Germans.
Iceland, with its 330,000 inhabitants, is of course by far the smallest nation to qualify for participation in a major football tournament. The UEFA points engages in some statistical games to illustrate this fact.
In population terms, Iceland's achievement is truly startling; the nation's population is less than a fifth of the size of that of Northern Ireland – the 23rd most populous nation represented in France. The 23-man squad which Iceland will take to UEFA EURO 2016 will represent around 0.007% of the national population; if Russia took an equivalent cohort with them to the finals, they would bring over 10,000 players.
