The Sunday Times today has an interview with Croke Park stadium manager Peter McKenna who confirmed there were high level negotiations taking place with the NFL for Dublin to host a regular season game in 2013.
McKenna is quoted as saying:
We started working on this after we heard the NFL is holding two fixtures outside America next year. Normally they hold one, and that’s in Wembley in London. We’re making a pitch for the second fixture to be played in Croke Park. We’ve spent some time with the NFL, we’ve shown them how the setup works. It’s in their hands now.
Dan Rooney, the American ambassador to Ireland and chairman of the Pittsburgh Steelers, has been instrumental in setting up the negotiations.
Without Dan, we wouldn’t even have got as far as the doors he has opened for us.
The match between Notre Dame and Navy has certainly paved the way for an NFL game in the next couple of years.
The college game allowed us to show the NFL how well Dublin can handle such a big sporting event.
The article quotes a spokesman for Enda Kenny who said that the NFL fixture is “something the government is interested in, and will be pursuing.”
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5 Comments
What a perfect place for the Giants ( Mara family) & steelers(Rooney) to play next season.
Congrats on being mentioned on ProFootballTalk.com, THE website for football chat and rumors.
[...] started working on this after we heard the NFL is holding two fixtures outside America next year,” said Croke Park manager Phil McKenna, via NFL-Ireland.com. “Normally they hold one, and [...]
Get it sorted please. Save me going to Wembley.
[...] to host a game in another county, there are two main reasons that come to light.Only two weeks ago Croke Park management said they were in talks with the NFL about bringing a game to Dublin in 2013, it’s very interesting timing considering a week [...]