Hearn and GAA share blame for Taylor shame

THERE was so much else going on this week that you probably missed Chantelle Cameron letting slip that Katie Taylor’s Croke Park dream is over. For now, at least.

The English woman gave an interview to a UK newspaper where she explained that the contract for a third fight with the Irish legend stipulates that it will take place at Dublin’s 3 Arena in May.

And like that, there is no more Croker for Katie. To be fair, we expected as much from the moment at the release of the GAA annual report when Peter McKenna said that he had no contact with Taylor’s team. As much as they would be willing to give one of Ireland’s greatest, and most popular, sports people their defining moment, there was much that had made Croke Park a little reluctant.

Matchrooom chief Eddie Hearn shouting his mouth off in the media last year about the cost of Croker compared to Wembley didn’t help matters. Neither did the anticipated involvement of Conor McGregor in the promotion, given all the baggage he will bring.

Hearn has done a fine job in developing and nurturing Taylor into a superstar in the pro game, but he played his hand pretty badly when it came to a possible Croke Park show.

Broadcasting constraints didn’t help, either. Croker is only idle on two weekends in May, but the Europa League final is in Dublin on May 25, so there was no way that a second big stadium event will be allowed in the city on the same day. It remains to be seen whether the authorities will even accede to a show in the Point on the same evening, considering the clubs that may be involved in the match at Aviva Stadium.

Hearn’s urgency to have the third instalment of Taylor-Cameron in May didn’t help the cause, either. A Croker show will take a fair bit of planning and time is running out. In the distance still looms the spectre of Amanda Serrano, who has intimated that she is willing to come back down to 10 rounds for a rematch with Taylor. The Puerto Rican has said previously that she would also come to Dublin.

Perhaps Croke Park might be warmer to the idea to staging a sequel to that all-time classic from Madison Square Garden. Maybe that is what is needed to revive this dream of Taylor walking in Ali’s footsteps on the Jones’s Road turf before her retirement.

However, at this juncture, it looks like this event – which would have been seismic in the annals of Irish sport – will never come to pass, which is a shame. When the blame game starts, neither Hearn nor Croke Park will escape the criticism.