Pitch invasions are a costly business

Croke Park has accepted there is little the authorities can do to restrain supporters from flooding on to the pitch after matches.

Stadium director Peter McKenna said that whereas crowd-control measures had proved successful at the recent women's finals, translating that into similar compliance at other big occasions would largely be a matter for those in attendance.

The matter has become high profile because of the rising number of personal injury cases being taken against the GAA every time a major pitch invasion takes place.

Sunday's women's football final passed off without incident, as the crowd didn't challenge the temporary barrier of plastic netting raised by stewards after the match.

"We were very pleased with the way it went," said McKenna. "It was great to see teams being able to bring the cup around to their fans, who also got a good view of the presentation."

He acknowledges that restraining smaller crowds is much easier.

"A crowd of 26,000 is still a fair size, but when your attendance is up to 82,000 or 83,000 it's harder to orchestrate these measures," he said.

"My own view is that unless the crowd themselves decide to stay off, restraint is really difficult.

"Enforcement doesn't work as we saw when some stewards lost the plot recently. We need to get the majority to co-operate with us. Otherwise it's an exercise in futility."

As well as the issue of crowd safety during these incursions, the question of financial cost has also been raised.

"There are insurance implications," said McKenna. "We live in a far more litigious environment than 15 years ago and there has been a major increase in the numbers alleging they have been injured in the pushing and shoving that goes on, on the pitch, after matches.

"Our insurance covers these claims, but they mean that the premiums go up and it's money that could be better spent elsewhere."

The accounts for Croke Park Teoranta, the holding company for the stadium, indicate that insurance costs have risen by 48 per cent since 2002.

Not all of that increase can be put down to litigation and personal-injury settlements, as the ground has recorded a slight rise in capacity in the past four years with, for example, the completion of the Northern End, but, according to McKenna, claims are increasing.

"The value of the claims being lodged against us is definitely going up. We can tweak insurance premiums ourselves by implementing new management systems within the stadium and we managed to get the overall cost down slightly last year, but litigation is a concern because there is generally a lag between cause and effect when premiums go either up or down. So at the moment we're probably not dealing with the full implications of these increases."