THE GAA HAVE defended their decision not to host an American football game in 2016.
It was announced in April that the event was no longer viable according to GAA bosses and there would be no repeat of last August’s Croke Park Classic which was contested by Penn State and University of Central Florida.
The42 understands that an announcement is likely today that the Aviva Stadium will host a college American football game between Boston College and Georgia Tech.
GAA President Aogán Ó Fearghail insisted yesterday that American football games will only be staged if they are have a ‘promotional value’ to the GAA or are ‘financially worthwhile’ so that funds can be reinvested at grassroots level.
Host
“If we host an American football game, it has to be because it’s of some promotional value or it’s financially worthwhile to the GAA.
“At the moment, neither of those would be achieved so we’ve decided we’re not going to host a Boston College American football game next year in 2016.”
Does that mean the Aviva Stadium could be set to steal a march on Croke Park?
“I don’t know,” remarked Ó Fearghail.
“I do well to try to keep an eye on Croke Park. It’s just not going to happen here because it wouldn’t make a lot of sense in my view having an American game here where potentially it mightn’t make any money for the association.
Value
“What would be the value of it? What point would it serve? Who would it serve? These things have to be looked at.
“If we can run something here in Croke Park like an American football match, that generates an income that we can reinvest in the GAA. There’s massive developments taking place in clubs, clubs that would love to have more that we could give them.”
Ó Fearghail doesn’t agree that the controversy surrounding last year’s Kerry-Mayo replay being moved to the Gaelic Grounds impacted on the GAA’s thinking in this regard.
“I’m not sure it did. A lot of people were happy, they thought it was nice to see (the game in) Limerick.
“We had a recent discussion on this at Central Council and overwhelmingly, (a) huge majority voted that in future we can play games outside of Croke Park at semi-final level because the experience in Limerick was generally positive.
“The only reason Croke Park is ever open to other events is that we can generate an income to spend on other activities in the GAA. If we’re not going to do that, it’s fairly pointless.”
– First published 00.05
