GAA under fire over child ticket prices

THE GAA have come under fire for charging children as young as five years old 20 to watch fringe championship games.

Parents who bring their children into the stand for All-Ireland qualifiers find they can’t get a family rate.

The GAA say this occurs because when a stand is bookable, one rate applies to all seats. The decision on whether a stand is bookable or not is made on a match-by-match basis.

However, the Consumer’s Association of Ireland (CAI) criticised the GAA over their failure to introduce a family rate for all games.

CAI chairman Michael Kilcoyne said: “Children should always be seated with their parents and often the stand is the best place for young kids. The GAA is trying to make some extra cash here and it’s not right.”

Parents had to fork out 20 euro for children at games in Portlaoise, Thurles and Navan this month.

The same happened at the clash between Mayo and Limerick at Dr Hyde Park in Roscommon on Saturday.

Some parents even had to pay high prices at games which were poorly attended.

One angry father, who brought his nine-year-old son to a football qualifier in Portlaoise last Saturday week, slammed the pricing arrangements.

“If we are trying to encourage kids to take up the game this is the wrong way to go about it,” he said.

The qualifying games were first introduced by the GAA in the football championship last year to give teams beaten in provincial fixtures a second chance.

This creates several extra games in the GAA calendar, with all teams playing a minimum of two games during the summer.

This ‘back door’ system was extended to the hurling championship this year.

The GAA doesn’t offer reduced prices for stand tickets that can be booked before a match and officials at Croke Park yesterday insisted the organisation’s prices for the qualifying matches have been consistent.

A spokesperson said: “When a stand is bookable, the same rate applies for children as adults. They can get into other parts of the ground free.”

However, family prices are offered in Croke Park but not at the grounds selected for the qualifying games.

Under the Croke Park rate, the first two tickets cost the standard price while all stand tickets after that cost 5 euro.

The GAA benefited to the tune of 2 million euro last Sunday, when more than 78,000 people attended the Leinster final between Dublin and Kildare.

Croke Park officials yesterday insisted they don’t know how much extra revenue the qualifiers have generated this summer. However, by the end of July 2001, it was estimated gate receipts from the football championship alone totalled 15.24 million euro.