Croke Park Counted Out? Minster’s comments suggest Katie Taylor’s Stadium dream is over
Katie Taylor’s chances of topping a Croke Park bill this summer seem to be counted out.
The referee’s count was moved from six to eight last week when the GAA revealed they hadn’t held discussions with Matchroom or Team Taylor about a massive May fight night.
It looks like the ref is holding nine fingers up now and about to wave off proceedings, as Minister of State for Sport and Physical Education, Thomas Byrne refuted claims Grant Thornton had held formal talks with Government in a bid to get an historic event over the line.
In fact, the Minister was very insistent he has not heard from Matchroom since January of last year and claims he is unaware of any feasibility study done and submitted to the Department of Sport.
“No, unless they did it yesterday or something,” said Byrne, speaking at the Sport Ireland High-Performance announcement of record €25m for this year.
“I mean, we heard that some months ago there were discussions with the government. There were no discussions with me.
“That was with Katie’s management team really, it wasn’t with the promoters – and they made the proposal to the Department but then they made a different decision.”
It appears there were some discussions when the plan was to promoter Taylor against Amanda Serrano in Croke Park last May, but the Minster said there have been no discussions since the Irish Icon defeated Chantelle Cameron to become a two-weight undisputed champion in November.
“I haven’t seen it and I certainly haven’t discussed it with the promoters,” he said.
“They have not been in direct contact with the Department, as I understand it, since I was appointed.”
Asked if the mixed messages came as a surprise, the Minister replied: “No, because we regularly get these issues through the media, that the Government might back this or that, whether it’s big events or stadia and we’re like, ‘Nobody talked to us about it’.
“You see this all the time.
“We’ve said this consistently on this issue and on other issues as well, if they come to us with a proposal, we’ll absolutely look at every proposal fairly. I’ve said that.
“We have almost completed putting together a national policy on major events and that will obviously have a bearing on it.
“So all of these major events, yes they have to have a tourism spin-off but they also have to, in some way, be shown to encourage people to take part in sport.
“But I haven’t seen the Grant Thornton report. If it’s been sent into officials, we haven’t seen it.”
Matchroom CEO Frank Smith told Irish-boxing.com three weeks ago that prolonged discussions had taken place with Government. Irish-boxing.com understands Taylor’s manager Brian Peters had talks with Government officials and was very positive about a Croke Park fight night in January.
However, it seems the Minster wasn’t contacted directly.
Speaking previously Smith, assured if Croke Park couldn’t be delivered a trilogy fight with Chantelle Cameron will still play out in Dublin, with the 3Arena the most likely venue for the rubber match.
