Gavan Casey

EDDIE HEARN BELIEVES that only a fight at Croke Park would motivate Katie Taylor to box again, but the promoter is not particularly optimistic that he will get the opportunity to stage an event at the home of GAA.

After Taylor closed the book on her rivalry with Amanda Serrano at Madison Square Garden, New York, earlier this month, the 39-year-old was for the first time non-committal on her future, admitting during her post-fight press conference that she would consider retirement having definitively seen off her career nemesis.

A Taylor fight at Croke Park was initially explored following the Bray woman’s first victory over Serrano at MSG in April 2022. However, Croke Park’s rental cost and a lack of financial support from the Irish state — ministerial changeovers in the years since have partly contributed to the latter — have dissuaded Matchroom from pushing forward with the event.

The 42 understands that the total cost of a fight night at Croke Park would be somewhere in the region of €1.1 million, which is more than twice what Matchroom have paid to stage equivalent events at London’s Wembley Stadium or the Principality Stadium in Cardiff.

Hearn’s efforts to secure financial support from the Irish government to offset some of that difference have so far reached only dead ends, while Croke Park Ltd and its commercial director, Peter McKenna, have held firm with what is their standard pricing model for all non-GAA-run events.

And speaking in Belfast as he launched the first ever all-Irish world-title fight between Lewis Crocker and Paddy Donovan, who will meet at Windsor Park on 13 September, the Matchroom chairman expressed his belief that Croke Park Ltd are simply not keen to host a boxing event at Ireland’s most iconic stadium.

“When you look at Croke Park, I just don’t think the people there are massive fans of boxing,” Hearn said. “I think they’re fans of Katie Taylor, but I just don’t think they really like boxing. But Katie Taylor is beyond boxing.

“I mean, she’s sport — but she’s also history and heritage, and probably one of the greatest ever athletes from that country.

“Now you see the sports minister (Charlie McConalogue) saying after she beat Serrano, ‘Yeah, we should look at bringing Katie Taylor to Croke Park’.

“We don’t want handouts. We just want parity between Croke Park and Wembley Stadium in terms of the cost being the same.

“But I don’t know if she’ll fight again,” Hearn said of Taylor. “It probably is 50-50. And it’s the first time I’ve ever heard her say, ‘if I fight again’.

“But I think if we could go to Croke Park, that would certainly maybe twist her arm.”

Welterweights Crocker and Donovan will fight at the home of Northern Irish football for the IBF welterweight world title in September in a rematch of their compelling, controversial initial meeting at Belfast’s SSE Arena in March.

Crocker, who won the original bout via disqualification when Donovan dropped him after the bell had sounded to end the eighth round, will again be the local hero as he fights at the home ground of his beloved Linfield FC.

And Hearn credited the Northern Irish football association (IFA), Windsor Park stakeholders, and the Northern Ireland Executive who are all expected to contribute financially to September’s sporting occasion in Belfast.

“We never want a handout. We just want a partnership where we can receive support to make it as big an event as we’d like to,” Hearn said.

“The Irish FA, the government, and Windsor Park realised the magnitude of this event and how great it could be — especially for a local boy like Lewis Crocker, but also the history of fighting for a world championship.”