Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Hill 16 to be a seat of power..
THE GAA are looking into making Hill 16 all-seated while social distancing remains.
GAA president John Horan has revealed the plan to allow 21,000 supporters into Croke Park for inter-county games when the season gets up and running from October 17.
But that figure could increase to 42,000 if social distancing is reduced to one metre under the guidelines.
Horan said: “We have already worked it out that if large crowds are to gather over 5,000, we probably could put 21,000 into Croke Park safely.
“The operations team in Croke Park have mapped it out.
“Until social distancing is scaled back, we won’t be able to pack Croke Park.
“It is our intention to get it open and going when we get the inter-county games going and if it goes back to one metre we would probably be able to double the attendance to 42,000.
“There’s an issue over the Hill and whether we would be able to get seating in there because really controlling crowds is always going to be a nightmare going forward.”
Meanwhile Horan, who was speaking on his club Na Fianna’s Facebook page, claimed that the provincial championships were a “monster” in terms of dealing with fixture reform.
“The fixtures review team have done great work on that,” said Horan.
“One of the big challenges is to tackle the monster that is the traditional feature of the GAA, that is the provincial championships.
“Ulster and Munster you’d find it very hard to move in terms of the Munster hurling Championship and the Ulster football Championship.
“But getting that work done and getting it out... unfortunately we may not finish it out before my time comes to an end, but it’ll be there and hopefully Larry (Mccarthy) will push it on.”