The GAA can confirm that the combined attendances for this year’s GAA Football and Hurling Championships will pass the one million mark this weekend with Saturday’s double header quarter-final football fixtures involving Down v Kerry and Dublin v Tyrone at Croke Park.

To date 959,367 people have attended 79 senior inter-county championship matches in both codes (compared to 76 in 2009) which is a decrease of 2.0% on the figure for the same period last year.

The 2010 figure was recorded despite a significant drop in the traditional attendance for Cork v Limerick GAA Munster hurling championship games, the early elimination of Dublin from the Leinster football championship and the unusual timing of a number of fixtures as a result of television scheduling because of World Cup matches.

The hurling and football qualifiers combined show an increase of 13% on 2009.

The GAA would like to acknowledge the ongoing support of its members and supporters in what continue to be challenging economic times and point to the sale of special ticket packages that have been made available for the second year running in an effort to offer extra value to regular attendees of our games.