Galway United have confirmed their League of Ireland clash with Dundalk will be played at Turner’s Cross after multiple venue alternatives and rescheduling proposals were rejected.
Safe to say its been a strange month for the county of Galway and we aren’t even halfway through it. From Sean Fitzgerald heading onto Love Island, to the Galway hurlers completing a record three titles at Minor, Under 21 and Senior levels. But things are about to get a lot stranger for the Tribesmen as John Caulfield and his maroon army will relocate to Salthill’s Pearse Stadium for the June and July.
Home to Galway GAA, Pearse Stadium is notorious for it’s Atlantic climate, ferocious wind and rain, which has proven to had drastic impacts on the games hosted there. Due to drainage and other groundworks being done, Galway United are set to set up shop in the 26,200 capacity venue, which is over 5 times bigger than Eamon Deacy Park. There are set to be 3 games against Derry City (19th of June), Sligo Rovers (11th of July) and Waterford (25th of June), however a fourth game against Dundalk was scheduled for Pearse Stadium, but was refixed in dramatic fashion.
Around lunchtime yesterday, it was announced that Galway United and Dundalk’s game had been moved to Munster FA Turner’s Cross, home of Cork City. The game scheduled for Salthill on Friday was moved due to the Galway Footballer’s All Ireland Football Championship clash against Westmeath on Sunday. Galway GAA had offered for the game to be played in Pearse Stadium on Monday the 15th of June. Galway United also wanted to reverse the fixture in which Dundalk denied both resolutions. Galway manager John Caulfield released a statement in which he stated “Galway GAA have been a pleasure to deal with”.
Galway then had to look elsewhere for a venue in which included Treaty United’s Markets Field and Longford Town’s Bishopsgate and several others, “Eight in total, …. some ruled out by the FAI and some ruled out because pitches were not avaliable”. After the struggle to find a venue, Galway wished to have the fixture rescheduled, to which the FAI told Galway “If the game did not go ahead this Friday, .. we (Galway United) would have to forfeit the 3 points”. Caulfield reflected on this punishment as “Very tough, the way we were going to be penalised”, based off of teams being allowed to reschedule and refix games. Caulfield stated that Athlone Town’s all weather pitch was avaliable for use, but that did not suit Galway United.
Galway United are now “Doing everything in their power to get as many people to come and support us” and are now offering discounted bus tickets for supporters to make the journey to Turners Cross on Friday.
Galway United have released a club statement on the matter, in which they describe the decision to play the came in Turner’s Cross as “forced”.
“The League of Ireland have confirmed that our upcoming game against Dundalk will now take place at Munster FA Turner’s Cross Stadium on Friday, June 12th at 7.45pm The club did everything in our power to ensure that the game took place in Galway, including presenting multiple different options of venue and date changes. All of these options were rejected. We did not reach the decision to play the game in Cork lightly. We were forced into the decision. We’d like to sincerely apologise to any of our supporters affected by the venue change. All season tickets will be valid, and the club are running subsidised buses for supporters. They will be priced as €5 return for season ticket holders and €10 return for non-season ticket supporters. We’d like to thank Galway GAA for their support throughout this process and the Munster FA for allowing the game to take place in their stadium.”
Manager John Caufield speaks in-depth following today’s announcement from the League of Ireland about our game against Dundalk ️#ItsATribalThing | #GUFC2026 pic.twitter.com/cFLCqVkb2J
— Gaillimh Aontaithe (@GalwayUnitedFC) June 8, 2026