THE CONTINUING RESTRICTIONS on the number of fans who can attend GAA matches has been criticised by the chairman of All-Ireland winners Corofin, who has spoken of the pressure facing club officers as they try to accommodate supporters.
Michael Ryder has been chairman during a hugely successful time for the Galway outfit that made history in Croke Park in January in becoming the first club to winning three All-Ireland senior titles in a row.
Corofin have dominated the Galway and Connacht football scenes as well with their 2020 county championship opener set to take place Sunday week against Oughterard, who also achieved All-Ireland glory earlier this year at intermediate level.
But with restrictions on outdoor gatherings still in place due to Covid-19, there will be only 30 tickets available to Corofin club members as the senior team make their return to championship action.
“The team and management will get 40 and the club will get 30 to sell. We’re a club with 500-600 members, 30 tickets is not great for us, it’s a complete nuisance. 500 people going into Pearse Stadium, you could definitely have spread them around.
“It’s a huge stand that takes 9,000 people. “There could easily be 5,000 or 6,000 at this game with two All-Ireland champions meeting and it’s a big day for Oughterard being back up senior.”
“To say you’re going to have 100 people outside of the players there. Between stewards, reporters and camera men, there’ll be as many extras there as clubs will have supporters. It’s something they have got wrong and they’re not being fair to the clubs.
“Since Covid came in, clubs have done a lot of voluntary work to help their neighbours in some way. It’s just a pity the Government did not look at the GAA at club level to help them.”
Ryder admitted it is a headache facing the club officers, a scenario that will replicated around the country in having to tell loyal members they cannot attend the game.
“What we’re feeling here is that the club officers are going to feel the brunt of this because we have to be refusing people and tell them their name will be going into the hat for the 30 tickets. We will conduct it in the same way we would for All-Ireland tickets.
“But that’s not very fair on the guy who helps you cut the pitch or line the pitch or something else voluntary on a Saturday morning. It’s grown to be a big day out over the last number of years. It’s a great day out for families, the kids that go are all dressed in the jerseys and hats. It’s just a real pity that we cannot have those people that support you week in week out with your Lotto, coming to your underage games and doing whatever voluntary work that is needed. We’ve really good loyal supporters.
“I would definitely hope the Government would look at it and increase it to 500. Our President John Horan spoke very well at the weekend. I just hope that over the next two weeks this can be resolved to help clubs.
“We have no income since March, we had to cancel our Lotto, we only have it back the last few weeks. It’s not an easy for a club to lose that form of funding so they could have helped the clubs in that small way to let fans in.”
There will be television coverage of Sunday week’s game from TG4. Corofin are aiming to land an eighth consecutive Galway senior title in a season where they will be operating without 2001 Galway All-Ireland winner Kieran Fitzgerald who retired from club action in January.
“Kieran is on the sideline, involved with the management there,” says Ryder.
“It’s fantastic to see him involved with the team. He’s the sort of guy we don’t want to lose in the club, he’s set such high standards over the years.
“It’s probably been too long of a break for us. All teams needed to get their players back in action. I think every club will be gunning now to play football, Kevin (O’Brien) and the management are really looking forward to it, the training has gone well.
“It has been an amazing and fantastic run for us. You have to credit to the management for keeping the players focused year in year out but this will be a difficult year because it is such a short time to play championship so you have to be really focused.”
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- An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Corofin’s opening game will take place next Sunday, it will be played on Sunday 2 August.
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