GAC brings Kerry-Mayo minors to Croke Park

Tony Leen

The other minor semi-final between Down and Offaly will now be played on Saturday, August 27th, in Navan, along with the U21HC semi between Kilkenny and Antrim.

The GAC has already rubber-stamped Croke Park as the venue for the All-Ireland SFC semi final between Cork and Kerry.

It met after Sunday’s quarter finals and finalised arrangements for the August 28th showdown between the great Munster rivals.

Committee chairman Tony O’Keefe said: “The venues for the All-Ireland senior football semi finals are pre-ordained. It’s the second most important fixture in the football calendar and while there are cost issues for fans, most counties want to play at Croke Park.”

Cork GAA chairman Jim Forbes supported the announcement.

“Under rule, all All-Ireland semi-final and finals must be played in Croke Park, so any question of an outside venue for our game with Kerry was never an issue.

“The one thing I would like to say however is that while all our inter-county success great, it’s very expensive on our supporters. You have little change out of 100 after you buy train and match tickets.

“Something to eat and drink puts at least another 50 on top of that. With all the travelling we’ve been doing and more to come, it’s costing our followers a small fortune.

“But they appear to be enjoying the success.”

The GAA yesterday confirmed that almost 16,000 tickets for Saturday’s Bank of Ireland All Ireland SFC quarter-final between Dublin and Tyrone were sold out yesterday on the GAA website and Ticketmaster outlets nationwide.

All remaining tickets for this fixture have been allocated to the county boards in the participating counties.

An announcement about the sale of any tickets returned from County Boards will be made later in the week, should such a situation arise.