2001 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final
| Event | 2001 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship | ||||||
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| Date | 23 September 2001 | ||||||
| Venue | Croke Park, Dublin | ||||||
| Referee | Michael Collins (Cork) | ||||||
| Attendance | 70,482 | ||||||
The 2001 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final was the 114th All-Ireland Final and the deciding match of the 2001 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, an inter-county Gaelic football tournament for the top teams in Ireland.
Galway defeated Meath. Neither side has contested a final since this game.
Each of the 32 traditional counties of Ireland is represented by a county side. Every county, except Kilkenny, participated in the 2001 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship. The "overseas county" of New York also participated, while London played no part in the competition due to the outbreak of Foot-and-mouth disease. Each county in Ireland is located in a province; for the purpose of the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, London and New York are located in Connacht. The 2001 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship began with the four provincial championships – knock-out competitions between county sides in the same province. The four winners of these championships progressed automatically to the All-Ireland quarter-finals. The sides which did not win a provincial championship entered the All-Ireland qualifiers to determine which other four teams would play in the quarter-finals. New York, however, only competed in the provincial championship.
The 2001 Championship was the first to feature the qualifying system, in which sides who had not won their provincial championship competed for the right to join the provincial winners in the "All-Ireland series". Galway, who had lost to Roscommon in the Connacht Championship semi-final, thus became the first side to contest an All-Ireland Final having not won their provincial championship.
Galway had previously contested the final on 21 occasions, winning 8 times (in 1925, 1934, 1938, 1956, 1964, 1965, 1966 and 1998) and losing on 13 occasions, the most recent of which was the previous year. They were appearing in the final for the third time in four years. Meath had won the title 7 times (in 1949, 1954, 1967, 1987, 1988, 1996 and 1999) and lost on 8 occasions. Manager Seán Boylan had been in charge for 8 of Meath's previous final appearances, including replays.
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