Central Council to open Croker in 07

damienom

Resolution was passed this lunchtime

Source UTV

A meeting of the GAA’s powerful Central Council has agreed that rugby and soccer internationals could take place at Croke Park in 2007.

This follows a decision by the GAA Congress last April that Central Council would have the power to allow the games in during the re-development of Lansdowne Road.

The Council has given the go-ahead to the games, subject to the finer points being discussed by the GAA, the IRFU, and the FAI.

The dates of the games will come inside the next two months when the FAI and the IRFU announce their 2007 home fixtures.

GAA President Sean Kelly has welcomed the news as a positive development.

Benedict XVI

Here is an article on the finincial aspects of it from Today's Indo.

I know many soccer and rugby types are already complaining that the GAA will be charging a heft price for the use of Croke Park but this article shows that both the FAI and IRFU will do very well in the use of Croke Park, reagradless of high rent.

'Foreign games' to yield €36m bonanza for GAA

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Taoiseach Bertie Ahern shows off his hurling skills at Croke Park yesterday to students involved to students involved in Women in Sport project and ten camogie bursary winners.




Gaelic Games

THE GAA stands to earn €36 million in rent money from the IRFU and the FAI during the three seasons that Lansdowne Road is closed for redevelopment.

That's based on four sell-out rugby and soccer games per year (it may be more in some seasons) in Croke Park in the 2007/08/09 seasons.

While negotiations over the rental fees won't begin until the New Year, the GAA will be driving a hard bargain in order to maximise their return while proving to the sceptics within their own organisation that it made sense to open up Croke Park. The IRFU and the FAI can expect to be hit with a demand for €1.5 million per game for rugby and soccer fixtures that attract full houses.

Bucket seats

That would return up to €12 million per year for the GAA. Officially, Lansdowne Road is due to be closed for 27 months but there's a strong possibility that it could extend to three full seasons which would leave the GAA with a €36 million bonanza.

Despite the high rent, the IRFU and the FAI still stand to benefit hugely from a move to the 82,500-capacity Croke Park as the gross yield would be more than twice what Lansdowne Road can realise.

Lansdowne Road's total capacity for rugby games is 49,000 but, crucially, there are only 24,000 seats, 45,000 fewer than in Croke Park. Under UEFA and FIFA regulations, bucket seats have to be installed in Lansdowne Road for European and World Cup qualifier games, restricting the capacity for soccer to 34,500, other than for friendlies.

Corporate boxes

A sell-out rugby international at Lansdowne Road returns a ticket gross of around €2 million. However, the same game in Croke Park would yield over €4.5 million while another €1 million would accrue from the rent of corporate boxes, plus increased advertising revenue, arising from the larger signage areas in Croke Park.

Croke Park has 98 corporate boxes, compared to ten in Lansdowne Road. Depending on their sale date, some Croke Park boxes were offered to clients on the basis that they would be available irrespective of the event, while others stipulated GAA games only.

If, as expected, a Six Nations rugby international match against France in February 2007 marks a new era in the history of Croke Park, the gross take will be over €5.5 million, based on this year's ticket prices.

That's over €3 million more than the IRFU would return from Lansdowne Road so even if they had to pay the GAA €1.5 million, they would still have €1.5 million more for themselves than if the game were in Dublin 4.

Single price

The GAA operates a single price policy for All-Ireland final tickets, whereas the IRFU and the FAI have different prices depending on the location.

Tickets for this year's All-Ireland finals cost €60 each but the IRFU charged a top price of €70 for last month's internationals against New Zealand and Australia. However, they also had €60 and €50 tickets for less well-positioned seats.

Both the IRFU and FAI are likely to consider adopting the GAA one-price policy in Croke Park on the basis that the public would have no complaints because of the excellence of all the facilities.

While there is certain to be a degree of posturing over the up-coming negotiations, it's a win-win-win situation for the GAA, IRFU and FAI.

It's understood that the FAI paid 15 per cent of the gate in rent money to the IRFU for the use of Lansdowne Road but because Croke Park has far greater earning potential, the GAA could be looking for up to 25 per cent while also making demands regarding TV money.

Relationship

The GAA are in a very strong bargaining position as they will be the only stadium show in town once the IRFU and the FAI become temporarily homeless in early 2007.

Both the IRFU and FAI would, of course, threaten to move their fixtures to Britain if they deemed the GAA's demands to be excessive but they would lose the PR war heavily if they forced their supporters to travel overseas. Besides, even if the GAA demanded €1.5 million per game, the IRFU and FAI would still earn more than in Lansdowne Road.

Technically, Croke Park's relationship with rugby and soccer will end once Lansdowne Road is redeveloped but there is a strong possibility that it will continue for the bigger international games.

Even if Lansdowne Road hasn't its projected capacity reduced in the planning process, it will still hold only 55,000 which is 27,500 less than Croke Park.

In those circumstance it would make both economic and sporting sense to play the bigger rugby and soccer games in Croke Park.

The GAA only agreed to make Croke Park available while work was ongoing in Lansdowne Road but, having made the historic decision to change Rule 42, it's unlikely that it will be reintroduced in four or five years' time.

The Rooster

€1.5m would be lovely, but I think a figure of between €750k and €1m is more likely.

Still a lot of obstacles to be overcome to have Lansdowne Road "under development" by Spring 2007.

mchurl

will lansdowne be under development by 07? not likely imo. They have a lot of obstacles to overcome first and the fai and irfu are never the quikest of organisations.

Geg124

You are right there. The IRFu and FAI arent the quickest when dealking with this type of problems.

This is another thing where will just have to wait and see what happens