The GAA is resisting the opportunity to beef up the All-Ireland football final crowd by more than 20,000 on “logistical” grounds, says president Larry McCarthy.
From September 6, venues for outdoor events will be allowed to have 75% capacity provided all attendees are fully vaccinated, outside of accompanied minors. With Croke Park’s full capacity standing at 82,300 it means that, in theory, close to 62,000 would be permitted to attend Saturday week’s Tyrone-Kerry decider.
However, the GAA will stick with the 50% threshold which has no vaccination requirement, meaning that just 41,150 tickets will be available.
Speaking on RTE’s Morning Ireland, McCarthy commented that carrying out the necessary checks before getting that volume of people into the ground would be “too onerous”.
He said: "It was a logistical issue - we have not trialled being able to check vaccine passports or vaccine documentation.
"So it was too onerous to get 60,000 into Croke Park in a condensed time. We didn't think we had the expertise to do it so we decided we would stick with the current amount.
"You're not only checking a vaccine passport but you're checking a photo ID and you're checking a ticket. That could take up to three minutes. If we were super competent at it we might be able to reduce that but the time frame was much too onerous for us to get it done efficiently.
"All tickets have been allocated at this stage, and about 50% had been allocated by the time we got word from the government that there was a possibility of going to 61,000.
"We would have liked to do it, no doubt. But we decided with all caution that we should stay with the current figure."
Despite only half the number of tickets that would normally be available going on sale, McCarthy explained that both counties’ allocation hasn’t been dramatically reduced compared to pre-Covid finals.
"In 2019 each county participating in the final got 13,500 tickets. This year Mayo and Tyrone are getting 11,450. They're getting much more stand tickets this time because we're not using the terraces.
"The cuts have come for the non-participating counties,” he added.
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