GAA president John Horan has called on the Government to allow 500 spectators attend club games throughout the country.

This weekend sees club fixtures resume nationwide but the decision to hold back entry into Phase 4 of government restrictions means only 200 can attend the Association’s games until August 10th.

Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland programme, Mr Horan described the change in decision in mid-week as “a hammer blow” to the GAA.

"The change in attendance guidelines has delivered a hammer blow to the organisation," he said.

"We put the return to the club game first to benefit our members and help out county boards survive for those clubs but our county boards were relying on an increase to 500 as a way of being able to cater for the demand on the ground from our supporters.

"They now have the extra burden of continuing to police 200 being in attendance. If you take those involved in the teams and stewarding out of it, you're probably looking at 120 supporters going to a game.

"If you work out the dimensions of a GAA pitch, that allows for social distancing of four metres between everybody attending the match.

"We have also encouraged everybody to wear face-masks, so I think these figures are a bit severe on us as an organisation, and I openly call on the Taoiseach and Tánaiste to go back and review those figures for us as an organisation.

"We have stadia throughout the country which can cater from anything from 6,000 to 50,000 people and to say that you can only have 120 supporters put in... I think the volunteers in our organisation acted totally responsibly in this pandemic and I don't think if we allowed them to increase the attendance from 200 to 500 that they would act irresponsibly."

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