GAA fear meagre crowds will continue
Provincial champions Kerry and Mayo will lock horns with Galway and Cork respectively in an attractive billing at Jones Road but GAA top-brass are predicting a modest crowd with a spokesperson for Croke Park yesterday reporting extremely poor ticket sales.
Last year’s quarter-final double-header involving the Munster and Connacht winners drew 63,446 supporters to the capital, but Sunday’s fare will be nearly half that figure.
The forecast decline in quarter-final attendances stems from a sharp decrease in crowd sizes at Munster, Connacht and All-Ireland qualifier games over the past three months.
Attendances at Munster SFC games this summer were down 39% by comparison with 2013, with an 11% drop-off in Connacht.
A crowd of over 46,000 is required at tomorrow’s qualifier double-header at Croke Park to better the total attendance figure from the 2013 All-Ireland qualifiers.
A total of 143,225 supporters filed through the turnstiles last year, in stark contrast to the 97,862 present at back-door encounters this summer.
“We expect 25,000 for Saturday’s two qualifier games,” said a GAA spokesperson, which would result in a 15% fall in qualifier attendance figures.
“We would expect a crowd of 35,000 then for Sunday. That is the most we can expect. If we get 40,000 you would have to be happy with that but ticket sales don’t indicate that figure will be reached.
“Just over 130,000 people attended last year’s four quarter-finals, but we won’t be reaching that figure this year. There is no specific reason for that. I wouldn’t imagine next weekend’s quarter-final double-header involving Dublin will be a sellout. It will really depend on who comes out of this weekend’s two qualifier games.”
GAA president Liam O’Neill says the All-Ireland football quarter and semi-finals will continue to be staged at Croke Park despite dwindling crowd sizes. Cork chairman Bob Ryan earlier this year revealed the board executive will lobby GAA hierarchy to move the All-Ireland football and hurling quarter-finals to Páirc Uí Chaoimh upon completion of the stadium’s regeneration.
“It’s interesting how people view playing at Croke Park. People say that people don’t want to play here but when it comes to semi-finals, that’s the only place to be,” said O’Neill.
“I’d say the only way you could play quarter or semi-finals elsewhere would be by agreement or if it happened that you had two counties that were geographically well located to be in a different stadium and the crowd wouldn’t be such that you’d justify opening Croke Park.
“You have to realise there were All-Ireland semi-finals played in front of paltry crowds in Croke Park 20-25 years ago. It’s amazing now that the size of the crowd and people’s perception of the size of the crowd is based on the capacity of the stadium. People would say 30,000 is a bad crowd here. Thirty thousand is a great crowd at any game, isn’t it? At a Premiership game 30,000 is a great crowd.
“What has happened since we started moving games here is that people start counting from the top down rather than the bottom up and we had have some fantastic crowds, 60,000 was a fantastic crowd for the Leinster football final. Almost 63,000. That was a fantastic crowd but people look at the stadium and say it holds 82,000 so 63,000 is kind of down but I think that the crowds at the moment are fantastic.”
Galway football board secretary Seamus O’Grady believes no more than 5,000 supporters will follow Alan Mulholland’s charges to Croke Park on Sunday despite the county’s senior footballers are returning to the quarter-final stage after a six-year absence.
“I couldn’t see any more than 5,000 Galway supporters in Croker. That would be a decent number if we do get it. The Galway Races are this week and that tends to hit people’s pockets,” reasoned O’Grady.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
