Katie Taylor's farewell bout at Croke Park to air on RTÉ

Irish boxing legend Katie Taylor will bring her historic career to a close on September 5, 2026, when she faces French challenger Flora Pili in a farewell bout at Croke Park in Dublin. The event, which will see Taylor bid to become an undisputed world champion for the third time, has been confirmed for free-to-air broadcast on RTÉ in the Republic of Ireland.

Taylor, who turned 40 last month, will defend her WBO, WBA, IBF, and Ring Magazine titles and fight for the vacant WBC Super Lightweight Championship. The bout will be her third professional fight in Ireland since she turned pro in 2016 and is expected to draw a crowd of over 80,000, making it the best-attended boxing match in the country's history and one of the largest ever for a female sporting event worldwide.

Tickets for the event sold out within minutes of going on sale in June. Taylor's manager, Brian Peters, told RTÉ Radio 1 that over 82,000 tickets were snapped up in half an hour, and an algorithm suggested they could have sold 537,000 in less than seven hours. "It is going to be unbelievable... historic... an Irish celebration," Peters said. "It's an event really that happens to be a boxing match because there's...