County mayors clash in semi-final venue row

THE ball hasn’t yet been thrown in, but already the first shots have been fired between Cork and Kerry in the battle for football supremacy — and the salvos have come from unusual sources.

A dispute has arisen between the two mayors of the respective counties after one of them sought support to have the All-Ireland semi-final played down south, and not in Croke Park.

The mayor of County Cork, Cllr John O’Shea, kicked off with an appeal to his Kerry counterpart to support his call on the GAA’s Central Council to have the match played in either Pairc Uí Chaoimh or Fitzgerald’s Stadium, Killarney. He was fairly sure that Kerry’s Mayor, Cllr Ted Fitzgerald, would run with it — but he got a bit of a shock.