CROKE PARK OPENS ITS DOORS TO 'FOREIGN' SPORTS
Croke Park to open its doors to football and rugby after 100-year ban on "foreign" sports lifted
Monday April 18, 2005
In a historic move, Ireland's Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) has voted to end its 100-year ban on "foreign" sports, paving the way for soccer and rugby to be played at its state-of-the-art stadium in Dublin. The 82,000-seat Croke Park, the spiritual home of gaelic football and hurling, will now be opened for international soccer and rugby temporarily displaced from their own crumbling venue at Lansdowne Road while the ground is redeveloped. The taoiseach Bertie Ahern described the change to the GAA's controversial Rule 42 as a "historic and momentous day for Irish sport". With no shortage of political and historical baggage, the debate on the GAA's future had dominated Ireland's airwaves for weeks, with representatives from the six counties of Northern Ireland voting against the motion. Sligo had proposed the change citing, among other things, the financial benefits of leasing Croke Park for soccer and rugby games for a limited amount of time - probably three years - instead of seeing the national teams forced to play home games in Britain. After debating for more than an hour on Saturday - a discussion that included the bizarre claim that letting soccer into Croke Park would help achieve a united Ireland while others argued it would destroy the soul of gaelic games - the results of the secret ballot showed that 227 members were in favour of the motion while 97 voted against it. The symbolism of the GAA's decision is huge. In November 1920, the British "Black and Tans" militia opened fire at Croke Park during a Dublin-Tipperary gaelic football match, killing 12 spectators and one player in what was Ireland's first "Bloody Sunday". Until 1971, the association banned its members from playing foreign games and, until 2001, British army personnel and Northern Ireland police officers were forbidden from joining. The GAA, which has leased its ground to American football and pop concerts in the past, is now assessing the financial potential of soccer and rugby. Peter Quinn, the organisation's former president, suggested last week that the GAA could charge up to 2 million euros a game.