RTE ANNOUNCES CROKE PARK IS TO BE DEMOLISHED WITH A NEW MODERN STADIUM TO RISE FROM THE ASHES

today the GAA President signed an agreement that will quite literally change the face of Irish sport it will take 15 years and 100 million to transform the crow Park Stadium into one of the most modern in Europe within hours of the final whistle of next month's all Ireland final the demolition of the cuak stand will begin its replacement will be ready about 18 months later it's the first stage of a transformation that would change the face of this sporting Mecca eventually bringing the Stadium's capacity to 80,000 people for over half a century thousands of Irish people have come to this stand to sit and cheer on their sporting Heroes but Pro Park is about to be reborn and for some saying goodbye to the kusak stand has brought on mixed emotions there'll be no one closely assoc associated with the GAA who won't be a little bit sad so as well as the odd smile I suppose there'll be the odd tear too when they start demolishing it after the all Ireland final but life has to move on and uh it's been there since 19 19 38 we need change um we need a new stadium and unfortunately one of the things that has to go is the old cusic stand about 750 people will work in this project at some stage during the next 15 years the developers say the final result will be well worth the wait I would say it's probably going to be one of the most modern stadiums certainly in Europe um obviously it's not covered stadiums in the states may have a roof this one doesn't have but otherwise it is state-ofthe-art but local groups are strongly opposed to the project they've long protested the disturbance events at Crow Park have caused residents around the stadium now they face the prospect of 15 years of development on their doorsteps the GAA says it understands these concerns and will do everything to minimize disruption however much we try to do there will be some people who until they actually see it in operation uh will continue to have concerns about it and the only guarantee that I can give to them is that we will do everything we can in order to minimize the disruption to them I can't say that there'll be absolutely no disruption but what I can say is that there will certainly not be any more disruption than is absolutely necessary the ga now faces the task of paying for the Redevelopment of cow park it aims to secure up to3 million pound in corporate donations but it also wants the state in some form to make a financial contribution to the project