The GAA is refusing to speculate on the attendance for Sunday's Allianz Football League final double-header at Croke Park amid fears that it may not pass the 25,000 mark.

Just 11,342 showed up for the Division 1 semi-finals two weeks ago, and while the supporters of three of Sunday's four finalists - Mayo, Kildare and Tyrone - traditionally travel in large numbers, the GAA are still bracing themselves for another poor attendance.

Last year's finals, which featured Cork and Dublin in the Division 1 decider, attracted 36,438 spectators, and the expectation is that this Sunday's attendance figure will be 10-15,000 below that.

GAA communications manager Alan Milton admitted to The Irish Times that Dublin's non-involvement in this year's final will have a major impact on the attendance.

"You can never really compare attendances between years when Dublin are involved, because they'll always boost the attendance, and don't have any great travel costs to factor in either," he said.

"So we're not going to throw out any potential attendance figures. But we do feel it's a very attractive programme, with four teams involved that will very likely be involved in the latter stages of the championship too.

"Tickets are priced at €25 for the double-bill, which is unchanged from last year too.

"In fairness, Tyrone and Kildare are always well supported, and the Mayo supporters showed up well for their semi-final two weeks ago. We appreciate it is another long journey from certain parts of Cork, but they have been consistently well supported too." Tweet

Most Read Stories