UEFA has released extra Euro 2016 tickets to Northern Ireland fans after a furore over the original allocation process.
Some fans were left fuming on Tuesday morning after a loyalty scheme apparently failed to prioritise those who had attended past games.
The Irish Football Association (IFA) had devised a points system with the aim of ensuring Northern Ireland fans who had attended the most qualifying and friendly matches got first preference when it came to tickets for this summer's tournament in France.
But fans who had amassed numerous loyalty points were scratching their heads after they missed out on tickets, while others with little or no points secured them.
The problem focused on Northern Ireland's opening game against Poland in Nice on June 12 - the match with the smallest ticket allocation (6,800).
The issue seemed to relate to the price category of tickets fans applied for.
Those with limited or no loyalty points appeared to have been able to secure seats in the more expensive areas of the stadium, while supporters with many loyalty points who applied for tickets in the more in-demand cheaper seat categories missed out.
With 50,000 applications for just under 30,000 total seats for Northern Ireland's three group games, there were always going to be many disappointed fans.
But there was a real sense of injustice among many fans who felt years of loyal support had not been rewarded.
The IFA held emergency talks with UEFA throughout Tuesday and, as a consequence, European football's governing body has now released extra tickets for those top-ranking loyalty scheme members who missed out.
A UEFA spokesman said: "UEFA are now in a position to make available extra tickets to ensure that those Northern Ireland fans at the top of the Irish FA's priority list will be able to attend the match.
"These tickets will be across all categories and those top-ranking fans who had missed out and who qualify for this new allocation will be contacted directly by UEFA towards the end of the month."
UEFA said it had applied the IFA's loyalty criteria but explained that in the specific 55 euro ticket category, demand exceeded supply.
Irish FA chief executive Patrick Nelson welcomed UEFA's response to the controversy.
"Our top priority throughout this entire process has always been to ensure that those fans that attended Northern Ireland games home and away in recent years should be at the front of the queue when it came to buying tickets for UEFA Euro 2016," he said.
"Therefore, I would like to thank UEFA for working with the Irish FA to provide some resolution to this issue.
"I would also like to thank those Northern Ireland fans who have purchased tickets for UEFA Euro 2016, and who are travelling to France, for their support of the team."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here