Camogie president urges major turnout for Sunday’s All-Ireland finals
Michael Bolton
Camogie Association president Brian Molloy has called on the public to demonstrate their support for women in sport by attending Sunday’s All-Ireland finals at Croke Park.
The men's All-Ireland football and hurling finals were sell-outs in Croke Park in July, while last Sunday’s All-Ireland women’s football finals triple-header attracted a crowd of 26,471.
This Sunday will see, for the third straight final, Cork taking on Galway, with Galway winning last year's final by a single point.
The intermediate final will see Antrim face Laois, and in the Premier Junior final, Armagh play Cavan.
Ahead of Sunday's final, Molloy is calling for people across the country to attend the game, as he hopes for a crowd between 30-40,000.
“It is already normalised that Croke Park is filled for the men’s games, it’s always a battle for the tickets and all the usual stuff that goes on.
“But we’ve kind of normalised it in society, in our associations, in the media, across everything, that it won’t be filled for the female games, and that just doesn’t make sense to me.
“If we’re serious about the importance of supporting female participation in sports at the highest level, then we have to do more than speak about it; we have to actually come out and physically support them.
“And my call has gone out to our own clubs, because it starts at home, it starts in the Camogie Association. We need to break away from the model whereby the focus is on just the six counties that are competing in the games on the day.
“If you’re in Waterford, or Kilkenny, or Tipperary, and you’re interested in camogie, you should be coming up to All-Ireland final day on Sunday.”
Molloy has also called for people who may not be involved in sport to make their presence felt on Sunday.
“We want young girls, in particular, to see what camogie at the top level is, and the only way to do that is to come up and watch it. The only way to really experience it is to come up and watch it – come up with your friends.
“But I think that corporates have a role to play here too. You have sports and social organisations across all the large corporates, and they encourage people to go to concerts. And they encourage people to go to all sorts of different events. They need to encourage people to go and watch our national sports being played by women.”
