Croke Park Stadium director Peter McKenna has ruled out the possibility of a retractable roof being installed at GAA headquarters any time soon.

When reflecting on last Sunday's rain soaked All-Ireland SFC final, Irish International Rules manager Joe Kernan yesterday claimed: "It is time to put a roof on Croke Park. Imagine the atmosphere that would have been in there on Sunday with a dry surface and the noise that would have been created by a closed roof."

But, speaking to The Examiner, McKenna responded: "It has never been raised in discussion. The issue is that because the stand in Croke Park is so big, this is not putting on a roof, this is building a bridge," he explained.

"You would need a bridge to cover the span. That requires fairly long stanchions to go inside and whether we technically have the room on the Hogan Stand side of the stadium to put down that level of support structure is questionable.

"And the cost then is another substantial issue. Ballpark, it would be into the hundreds of millions. It is the cost of a bridge.

"The final difficulty we have is the configuration of Hill 16 and the way that presents itself to the railway. Putting in a roof would not be feasible with current engineering techniques.

"The Millennium Stadium [in Cardiff], which has a roof, is a lot narrower than Croke Park. Croke Park is one of the widest stadiums in the world, the width of our pitch is almost the length of the Millennium."

Tweet

Most Read Stories