If the GAA has its way, American football matches in Croke Park will soon be a regular thing.

The staging of tomorrow's Croke Park Classic between Penn State and UCF has proven to be divisive as it resulted in the All-Ireland semi-final replay between Kerry and Mayo being brought to Limerick, but stadium director Peter McKenna has confirmed that attracting American football - including NFL games - to the GAA's flagship stadium is part of a concerted long-term strategy:

"The NFL has had an experiment going with games in London for some years, and they're very appreciative of that," he states in The Irish Examiner. "They're not going to put more games into London, but I think eventually they'll put a franchise in Europe to capture that part of the market.

"Rather than letting them focus all their activities in London, we feel we have an opportunity to attract American football here.

"This is going to bring approximately 16,000 Americans across here, 4,000 people coming in from Europe, and with local attendance, we'd expect 50,000-plus in Croke Park tomorrow for the game, a good crowd.

"We're aiming to build Dublin as a venue for American football, to get as many of these games as possible. That's what we're turning our attention to, though over a 10 to 12-year period."

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