Northern Ireland and Ireland fans to move to playing fields as Titanic Slipways quarter booked for concerts
Football supporters watch Northern Ireland v Germany from the Titanic fan zone in Belfast. Photograph: Liam McBurney/PA
Source : theguardian.com
A new fan zone has been found in Belfast to accommodate thousands of Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland supporters wanting to watch the knockout matches of Euro 2016 on giant TV screens this weekend.
The Titanic Slipways quarter on Belfast Lough, where both sets of fans watched their national teams take on Germany and Italy this week, was booked for rock concerts on Saturday and Sunday so was unavailable.
The first and deputy first ministers of Northern Ireland, Arlene Foster and Martin McGuinness, held an emergency meeting earlier on Thursday to seek an alternative fan zone venue.
Michael O’Neill’s Northern Ireland side face Wales in a home nations clash on Saturday evening, when the Scottish rock band Biffy Clyro will be playing the Titanic fan zone as part of the Belsonic music festival.
Foster tweeted earlier on Thursday that the problem would be “sorted” and she had asked Belfast city council to come up with an alternative location.
Belfast’s lord mayor, Brian Kingston, had suggested that the SSE Arena near the Titanic quarter might have been a possible alternative, but Belfast city council later announced that playing fields at Boucher Road in the south of the city had been chosen as the new fan zone.
It is understood it will cost the council at least £100,000 and that bar facilities have not yet been agreed.
Returning from Paris after watching Northern Ireland lose to Germany, McGuinness paid tribute to the fans of both Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, describing their behaviour as heartwarming.
Emoticon Emoticon