FAW battling for more tickets for Red Wall after revelation Wales will only get 5% of stadium allocation

The Football of Association of Wales are battling to secure more tickets for Red Wall fans hoping to travel to the World Cup after it was revealed they would only get 5% of the seating allocation for the group stages.

Wales became the final  team to qualify for the 32-team tournament by beating Ukraine in Sunday’s play-off final.

They are due to play all three of their group games against England, the US and Iran at the 50,000-capacity Ahmad bin Ali Stadium.

But FAW chief executive Noel Mooney said the belated nature of their qualification has left them facing an “uphill battle” over logistics with their World Cup opener against the United States on November 21 just over five months away.

“FIFA protocols means we only get five per cent of the stadium," he told Radio Wales. "Five per cent of the stadium is not a whole lot.

“We have to work with FIFA and other angles to try and get as many tickets as we can for our supporters."

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'Uphill battle'

Noel Mooney added:“We’ve got a huge membership (Wales have 25,000 Red Wall members), a huge demand that we saw on Sunday.

“We can feel it from supporters and companies and we should announce information later this week how fans can access tickets.

“We brought our management team in on Monday morning because tickets and accommodation has to be done.

“Because we are one of the last teams to qualify we are facing an uphill battle to to be honest to get everything done.

“The camp is done as we had to provisionally book it in January.

“But getting our fans there is right at the top of my mind at the moment.”