Donegal clubs eye swaps as ticket frenzy begins

Donegal GAA clubs seeking to maximise their All-Ireland football final tickets will offer swaps to their colleagues involved in the hurling showpiece.

Approximately 35,000 Donegal supporters witnessed their 0-16 to 1-11 win over Cork in the All-Ireland football semi-final on Sunday at Croke Park and demand for final tickets is already huge.

With the Donegal County Board expected to receive an allocation of just 13,500 for the final on September 23, secretary Aodh Mairtin O’Fearraigh has urged clubs to be as inventive as possible in order to maximise their allocations.

“Clubs will be prioritising their adult members first,” he said. “We are expecting to get in the region of 13 or 13,500 tickets. Up until now the most we have sold to date is 11,500 in the All-Ireland semi-final against Cork. We have just over 7,000 adult members in the county so we should be fine with them. Unfortunately for people who got their tickets online and in Centra and SuperValu they’re going to find tickets much harder to come by.”

Galway face Kilkenny in the hurling final on September 9, while Tipp face Dublin in the minor decider before Donegal, in their second final ever and first in 20 years, meet Dublin or Mayo a fortnight later for Sam Maguire. O’Fearraigh said: “A lot of clubs are putting a system in place where they will be swapping their All-Ireland hurling final applications in the hope they can get football tickets in return.”