Munster Council Meeting – June 7th 2012

Munster Council Meeting

June 7th 2012

The venue permutations for the Munster Senior Hurling and Senior Football Finals were among the important items for discussion at a meeting of the Munster CCC on Thursday evening. The venues were confirmed as follows –

Munster Senior Hurling Championship Final – Sunday July 15th at 4:00pm

Tipperary v Clare – Gaelic Grounds Limerick

Tipperary v Waterford – Pairc Ui Chaoimh

Cork v Clare – Semple Stadium Thurles

Cork v Waterford – Semple Stadium Thurles

Munster Senior Football Championship Final – Sunday July 8th at 2:00pm

Cork v Clare – Gaelic Grounds Limerick

Cork v Limerick – Gaelic Grounds Limerick (as part of a home and away arrangement)

Kerry v Clare – Gaelic Grounds Limerick

Kerry v Limerick – Fitzgerald Stadium Killarney (as part of a home and away arrangement)

Following a request from Waterford and the subsequent agreement of Tipperary, the CCC also agreed to move the semi-final of Electric Ireland Munster Minor Hurling Championship between Tipperary and Waterford from Friday June 29th to Wednesday June 27th at Semple Stadium Thurles.

It was agreed at last night’s Munster CCC meeting that the McGrath Cup Football and Waterford Crystal Cup Hurling pre-season competitions will continue for 2013. A discussion on the structure of the competitions will be discussed at the next meeting of Munster CCC.

There was also a full meeting of the Munster Council held in Limerick last evening. Delegates were given a tour of the new Munster GAA Headquarters beforehand which is progressing well and will come in under budget. It is expected the Munster Council will move in to the new HQ once the Munster Senior Championships end with the official opening by GAA President Liam O’Neill scheduled for Saturday October 6th.

A detailed discussion on the Senior Championships to date took place. A variety of opinions were expressed by delegates and included the ticket distribution system within counties and clubs, the lower than expected number of people availing of the discount packages despite a large promotional campaign, criticism in the media of the top level prices in isolation to the total packages on offer and a return to a seeded draw in Munster Senior Football. It was agreed to conduct a full and detailed review of all aspects of the Championships once the competitions had finished.

An issue regarding a small number of duplicate tickets at the May 27th double-header in Semple Stadium was raised by Tipperary delegate PJ Maher. Munster CEO Pat Fitzgerald confirmed that this occurred mainly due to the procedure for unsold tickets being destroyed once club and divisional allocations have been returned not being followed. Steps have been put in place to ensure the procedure is followed in future to avoid a recurrence.

Waterford delegate Anthony Walsh raised the issue of profit sharing of Munster Final programmes among the participating counties, given the amount of content provided by the counties in advance of each game. Munster CEO Pat Fitzgerald said that Munster Council is the only province that does not centrally produce its programmes and as a result does not make any revenue from their proceeds. Munster Chairman Sean Walsh said that programme committees were in place in each of the major stadiums in the province dating back 30 to 40 years and in most cases produced programmes of a high quality. Munster PRO Ed Donnelly confirmed that the quality of the programmes under the current system was paramount and was happy to continue with the current system whereby local clubs and juvenile bodies were the beneficiary of the profits, provided that Munster GAA maintained full editorial control for the content and the current high standards are maintained.