Cup final to show football is back says Gerard Lawlor

After a challenging couple of years due to the Covid pandemic, which led to the postponement of NIFL’s showpiece knockout tournament last season, it is back with a bang with record crowds anticipated at the National Stadium for the clash between Coleraine and Cliftonville.

Organisers are expecting a bumper attendance of around 11,000 which would not only break NIFL’s previous cup final record but also the overall record attendance for a League Cup final.

“I hope Sunday is the really strong message that football is back,” said Lawlor. “This is going to be a really good family day out.

“So far the biggest final NIFL has staged has been 6,000, but the overall League Cup final attendance was 10,000 under the Irish FA.

“So we have broken our own record and we’ve no doubt we are going to break the overall record on this occasion.

“We will have to sit down afterwards and look at everything and see how much pricing and marketing had an impact on the attendance.

“It wasn’t just having cheap tickets and playing it on a Sunday, we’ve had a vast marketing campaign that we have invested in.

“The other part of it is we’re promoting the league as well...for me, the League Cup has had the spin-off off an amazing Premiership campaign.

“Everything is just good about Irish League football at this moment in time, there’s a positivity about the place.

“From a NIFL perspective it’s our big cup competition, people maybe haven’t seen the value of it in the past and my intention was to look at it and really showcase NIFL and the day as it’s the closest thing we have to the Irish Cup final.

“We put a blueprint in place over a number of years to make it an occasion for the sporting calendar.

“I have to praise the two clubs because everything NIFL wanted to happen and every initiative we wanted to work on, the clubs were fully behind us.

“It’s a cup final, form goes out the window, we have two fantastic teams, you could toss a coin with regards to who is going to win this.

“I think it’s going to be a really entertaining showpiece.

“I think people will be really impressed by the standard...and just maybe they might start to attend games in the future.”