LEINSTER Council gate revenue is currently €300,000 down on last year but provincial chief executive Michael Delaney is optimistic the loss can be made up before the end of the championship in July. Most of the differential is because of the small crowd that attended the Leinster football double bill at the beginning of the month.

“We’re €300,000 down on last year,” he says, “but the difference is all on one fixture. The rest of the fixtures are on a par attendance -wise and income-wise and we’re hopeful we’ll pick up on that before the end of the season.”

The matches in question saw All-Ireland champions Dublin begin their season against Louth and Longford draw with Wexford. The crowd of 31,530 was 10,000 fewer than the number attending the corresponding programme last year, which featured Dublin-Laois and Kildare-Meath.

Delaney is however hopeful the semi-finals double bill, featuring Dublin-Wexford and potentially Kildare-Meath (both have yet to qualify from the quarter-finals against Offaly and Carlow) will draw a good crowd and that the final will show an increase on last year’s very poor 43,983 for the Dublin-Wexford match.

The recession has had a major cumulative impact with gate receipts having fallen back “at least a third” from their high point in the latter years of the last decade. “It’s a fact of life. We’re taking a hit. There are all sorts of packages that weren’t around a couple of years ago but I’ve made the point before that it’s not the cost of tickets that makes the day out expensive for our followers; it’s the full whack. We know that people are hurting.”

Delaney also revealed the provincial council was caught in a bind over Saturday week’s Kilkenny-Dublin hurling semi-final in Portlaoise. “We’re not that happy with having to start it at five o’clock and Kilkenny certainly aren’t but the decision is based on television schedules and the European soccer championships.

“At the moment there seems to be great interest in that particular game. If we had that at 3.30 on the Sunday afternoon you’d make it an awful lost easier for people to attend. But what do you do: decide not to go with live TV?

“I think that would be very unfair on the viewing public. An awful lot of people are pin-pointing that fixture as the first serious hurling game of the year with due respects to Tipp and Limerick.”