A demand that can't be met

The GAA's grouse season reaches its climax this week with the generally inadequate allocation of tickets to competing counties making itself felt on the ground. Already there have been reports (unconfirmed) of a county official getting a box for his perceived failure to deliver on a promise. Meanwhile grievances are crackling across the airwaves.

Although the allocation is inadequate, is it unfair? It's hard to say that it is. There are two basic quibbles about how the tickets are distributed. One that it is done exclusively through the clubs with no sale to the general public and two, that the competing counties receive such a small share.

On the first point, there's no arguing with the GAA's logic that on the two big days of the association's year, its members should have first option on tickets. And by and large, that's what happens.

Leaving aside the corporate level of the New Stand (to which we can return later), only about 1,500 tickets are earmarked for identifiably non-membership allocation - including sponsors, media (gulp!) and the Director General's discretionary batch - as can be seen by the accompanying analysis of the stand tickets distribution.

The demand for increased allocation to the competing counties becomes especially strident when counties find themselves in an All-Ireland final for the first time in a long time - particularly when they are well supported, like Clare's hurlers and the Kildare footballers. They are used to the more exclusive distribution of provincial matches and All-Ireland semi-finals for which the contestants share out all the tickets.

Seven years ago, in the bar of Jim McCartan's pub in Donaghcloney, the week before his son James was playing in Down's first All-Ireland since the 1960s, there was grumbling amongst some of the customers. The complaint was that the teams in the final should get the lion's share of the tickets.

James was present and said that Down hadn't been in a final for 23 years and would have had no access to those intervening matches had the system not allowed some outsiders attend the banquet. That is the central point of the system. The All-Ireland is a national occasion and should have a national attendance.

There is room, however, for tempering the rigours of the system or even rationalising it. Taking the stand allocation as the base - terrace tickets do go overwhelmingly to the counties involved - 37 per cent of the seats are distributed to supporters of the competing teams.

Yet, when was the All-Ireland where spectators from the counties involved were outnumbered nearly two to one in the stands? In other words, the tickets trickle down to interested parties, so why not regularise the practice and bring the allocation up to 50 per cent or 20,000?

The corporate level has a capacity of around 3,000. Whatever the complaints about the concept of this type of accommodation, there's a market for it and one which the GAA should tap as hard as any other sport. It can be forgotten that the financing of the New Stand was largely achieved on the back of corporate pre-sales. Fifteen per cent of the capacity for 85 per cent of the funding represents a good deal.

Furthermore that 15 per cent isn't lowering the number of tickets available. The rebuilding increased the capacity of the stand by about 10,000 and - even allowing for restrictions caused elsewhere in the ground by the new structure - has generated a larger overall capacity.

The basic problem remains. There will be more people interested in attending an All-Ireland final than there are tickets available. The GAA are guilty of no more incompetence than anyone trying to pour a quart into a pint glass.