The All Ireland Football final on Sunday will be sold out with tickets like gold dust and a capacity crowd of 82,300 packing Croke Park.
That record currently sits with the Women’s FA Cup Final held at Wembley Stadium last month, fresh off the back of a great campaign for England at the Women’s World Cup. 30,710 saw that game live and that’s the target for attendance now set for the All Ireland by Ladies Gaelic Football Association President Marie Hickey.
Ambitious
“We are very ambitious for the future of our games,” she said.
“If we do not aim for progression then we will stagnate and that is not what this sport is about. We have some of the best players in any sport playing our game and some that will be remembered in history as trailblazers and barrier breakers.”
“If you look at the quality of the football that is played there is no doubt that anyone that attends will be more then entertained as anyone that was at last year’s senior final between Dublin and Cork will testify and these two teams are back again this year to renew their rivalry.”
The finals will be televised live on All Ireland sponsor TG4 but the hope is that fans and players will take to the stadium rather than the sitting room.
Lift
The All Ireland Camogie Finals last weekend drew a crowd of 16,610 but the presence of Dublin guarantees a massive lift for the football and the target is a realistic one, representing a 10% increase on last year’s numbers.
Attendance at fixtures and support from within the playing and club community that already is as high as 150,000 in football for women is hugely important in presenting a pathway to young players to stay in the game.
There remains a significant drop in the numbers of young girls that play team sport and seeing it at the highest level is an important part of keeping players involved with all the social benefit that brings on top of the physical and wellbeing advantages.
The Women’s Sport Group brought together by Sport for Business will meet again for the second time this coming Monday before the Irish Soccer Team’s opening European Championship Qualifier against Finland at Tallaght Stadium.
See the eight take aways that emerged from our most recent meeting.
Image Credits: Sportsfile and Claire Murphy
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