They are getting a dose of football fever in the Baltics as Estonia's Euro 2012 qualifier against Ireland in Tallinn next month sold out within a matter of hours yesterday.
And that's bad news for Ireland supporters as they will have to make do with their official allocation of 1,400 tickets for the November 10 clash in Tallinn, with no chance of unsold tickets being sent on to Dublin for sale to Irish fans.
The Estonian FA put tickets -- priced at between €12 and €16 -- on sale at 9.0am yesterday, but within two hours the game was a sell-out.
The Estonians had checks in place to stop cheeky Irish fans buying tickets for the home section of the ground online, as tickets could not be bought with a credit card, only with an Estonian-issued debit card and then sent to an address in Estonia.
Of course, touts the world over manage to get their hands on tickets and with more than 1,400 Ireland fans eager to travel, Irish fans will no doubt be offered tickets soon, but as of this morning the only tickets on sale on eBay were for the home game in Dublin.
The sell-out is a surprise as Estonians have been slow to warm to their football team: the 14,000 capacity Le Coq Arena was not full for any of their qualifiers, with just 5,185 punters paying in to see the 1-1 draw at home to Serbia last March.
Their average home crowd during the qualifying campaign was 6,700.
Aidan Fitzmaurice
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