€3 million windfall for GAA coffers

The GAA are set to make as much as €3 million from Saturday week’s All-Ireland SFC final replay.

Despite a planned Dublin Bus strike, the game will go ahead in 12 day’s time with a 5pm throw-in.

A referee will be appointed later this week with yesterday’s sideline officials Maurice Deegan and Joe McQuillan in the running.

As they did for the three All-Ireland hurling final replays between 2012 and ’14, the GAA are expected to announce a ticket reduction for the replay.

For those games, tickets were cut from €80 to €50 for stand admission and terrace tickets were slashed from €40 to €25.

There were also children tickets priced at €10 available in designated areas.

Meanwhile, Dublin manager Jim Gavin took issue with referee Conor Lane for issuing a black card to James McCarthy for what was perceived to be a third man tackle on Cillian O’Connor in the first half yesterday.

“Definitely, if James got a black card for that particular shoulder, there was definitely other ones on the opposition side.

“So I think from the both camps, we just want consistency over the full expanse of the game from the refereeing perspective.

“Difficult as it was - and I thought the referee did a good job, difficult conditions.

“But I thought overall he managed it well.”

It is the second time in three games that Gavin has publicly criticised a referee for a decision taken against his team. After Dublin’s All-Ireland quarter-final win over Donegal, he claimed referee Ciaran Branagan and his linesmen and umpires let down Diarmuid Connolly.

“Eight of them, four umpires and the four men in black... they’re letting the players down on the pitch on both sides, by the way.”