Kildare primed for home campaign at Croke Park

Kildare playing home Allianz National Football League games at Croke Park next year is now looking likely.

The GAA fixture-makers are currently considering the prospect of facilitating the Lilywhites Division 2 campaign at HQ next season.

It has been reported that those home fixtures may be double-headers alongside Dublin's Saturday evening home games and RTÉ Sport understands that such a move is now in the pipeline.

Kildare are without a home venue until St Conleth’s Park completes its redevelopment at the end of 2024.

Venues like Nowlan Park and O’Connor Park have been used by the county this year and last week’s Naas and Celbridge SFC decider was facilitated by Netwatch Cullen Park in Carlow.

Work on the €17.5m facelift of Newbridge commenced in March after Kildare's final Allianz Football League game with Meath and will continue for a period of 18 months. It is anticipated the new venue could be ready in time for the county finals of 2024.

The redevelopment was originally costed at around €10.5m in 2019 but due to rising costs the project was delayed until the necessary finances were all in place to proceed.

The county board put €2m aside into the redevelopment fund allied to €2m in borrowings. They received a grant from the Government funding of €4.875m through the Large Scale Sports Infrastructure Fund (LSSIF) grant and also received funding from the Government’s IIP (Immigrant Investor Programme) worth €4m. The GAA’s Central Council and Leinster Council also backed the project.

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